Two Peeps and a Baby

We're still here....

2011-10-24T12:44:00.006-05:00

A picture from Aug of our house.

Taken at Christine Falls at Mt.Rainer

I hope to start posting more, but honestly, I barely even remember to check blogger that often. :(

We're doing well. We moved to Lacey, WA at the end of June. I miss Hawaii so much. Washington is beautiful, but I'm a tropics girl now. We love our new house. We have all of the boxes unpacked, but we're still organizing and decorating. Joel will be gone for the next month for training, so hopefully, I can get stuff done while he's gone.

Both of the kids have had birthday's since we moved. Maddie turned 1 the week after we got here and Isaac turned 5 a couple of weeks ago. They are both growing so big. Time is moving way to quickly. Madison couldn't even crawl when we moved here and she's practically running now. She was actually evaluated last week at the Peds Clinic and is right on target for her adjusted age of 12 months. She needs to go back in a couple of months for a speech follow-up and then in 6 months with the developmental pediatrician.
Birthday girl
Playing at the park
Little kitty cat

Isaac has started pre-school again. Preschool here is only 3 afternoons a week for 2 1/2 hrs., not nearly the amount that he got in Hawaii, which was 5 days a week for 6hrs. We are in the process of also getting him evaluated. He still has his developmental delays, but we think there is more to it than just prematurity. We suspect at the least, some ADHD. He goes in for his first appt on Nov. 2.
My little Mountaineers
Picking a pumpkin
First day of preschool

Joel will be leaving at the end of the week to go to training in California, in preperation for his spring deployment. He will be going to Afghanistan in March. Deployment lenght has changed to 9 months, so he will be hopefully be home right around Christmas time.

I'm doing ok. I've been called as the head of the RS activities committee at church. We had our first committee meeting this morning to plan our Christmas party. I've got some great ladies to work with, so it should be lots of fun.

Moving....

2011-05-08T04:03:00.002-05:00

Our plans to stay in Hawaii have fallen through, thanks to the Army. We were 2wks away from closing on a house here, when the army told us we were absolutely not staying. We could pick between Ft.Drum, NY, Ft. Bliss, TX, or Ft. Lewis Washington. We chose WA. NY is too cold and snowy and El Paso is way too dangerous. Everyone we have talked to who has either been to Ft. Lewis or is from WA, love it. I'm sure we're going to love it too, it will just take some adjusting, especially coming from a place like HI.

So, now we're in the process of building our first house. We flew to WA for a weekend in FEB to do a whirlwind house search. We found an awesome realtor that was referred to us from LDS Realty. He had about 30 houses lined up for us to see and it was a great trip. We ended up getting one built in a newer development, in a town called Lacey. It's about 10 miles west of Ft. Lewis and 10 miles east of Olympia. It seems like it's a really nice town. We did a lot of research to see where the best schools and lowest crime rates were and everything lead us to Lacey.

We're so excited for our house. It's been really hard to be an ocean away from a house you're having built though. It is a spec house, but we still got to pick out wood floors, carpets, paints, tile and granite. Our realtor has been keeping an eye on things for us and taking pictures and sending them to us once a week. The biggest pain in the rear with all of this though has been the tile company, Elite Floor Coverings. They absolutely SUCK!!!!! These are the people who are in charge of hardwood, carpet, paint and tile. We knew when we picked out our color scheme, we didn't like the tile they had suggested for the kitchen and the fireplaces, nor the design for the kitchen backsplash. They also knew this. Everytime we would call to talk to the design lady she was out sick. This went on for 3 wks. So, we finally went to Home Depot and picked out some tile that we liked and emailed her the colors, her response was, we don't buy from Home Depot, they're not one of our vendors. Why didn't she tell us that in the beginning?! After countless other emails, she finally sent us a list of some of their vendors. We then had to go through every single tile from every single vendor, online, and email them to her. She couldn't give us a price, because we didn't have a backsplash design. Um, hello, you're the designer, do you not have any ideas for us? So, Joel and I then sat down and made about a dozen designs and finally settled on one. So, after sending her the design, with all of the tile choices that we liked, they were able to give us quotes. This whole thing took about 2 months!!!! This should have been done in 2 days!!!! Anyhow, the tile was installed last week and needless to say, we were very dissappointed to see that the wrong accent tile had been put up in the kitchen. They put up rectangles instead of squares. Their excuse, the box was labled wrong from the vendor!!! Even my 4 year old, who goes to special needs preschool can tell you the difference between a rectangle and a square!!!! Thankfully, they are tearing it down and replacing it with what we ordered.

So, we went to the transportation office the other day to schedule our furniture pick-up. We want it to be in WA when we get there, because Joel's parents are coming out to help us unpack. They say it'll take up to 42 days for our stuff to get there, which mean's they have to pick it up on May 23. We don't leave HI until June 21. That's a month without furniture. Hopefully we can borrow a bed from someone for a few weeks.

We were able to go home on vacation in March. We only had 14 days, which meant only about 5 days at each family, which wasn't nearly long enough, but it was still nice to go home. Everyone loved seeing Isaac and Madison. Isaac went snow tubing at the ski resort with his daddy. Then we went to Disney World with Mimi and Pop. Lots of fun was had by all.

We're all doing well, although we're fighting with colds. Isaac only has 3 wks of school left. We're hoping to get him swim lessons before we leave here.
Madison is doing great. She turned 10 months old the other day. She's such a beautiful, sweet little girl. I can't imagine not having her in our life.

Hope everyone is doing well. Happy Mother's Day. I will post pictures later, they are all on the other computer.

Still here...

2010-12-10T21:45:00.010-05:00

I know it's been about 4 months since I posted last. I actually typed one up last month and the computer froze before I finished it and deleted the whole thing.

We're all doing well. My parents came to visit in October for two weeks, which was nice. The day afer they left though, Isaac got sick. He ended up having RSV (and pneumonia), which is a severe respiratory virus, that can be deadly to preemies. The illness made it's rounds through our family, first Isaac, then me, then Joel, then Madison. Each of us had it for about a week before the next person would catch it. Madison had been receiving synagis vaccinations to help protect her against RSV and it's a good thing, because I know things would have been a lot worse. As it was, she ended up spending 5 days in the hospital. The night she was admitted to the hospital, her core body temp was 93.7. I'm so glad I did not wait any longer to take her in. She had been to the doctor earlier in the day and she wasn't severe enough to be hospitalized then. However, she got progressively worse after we left the doctor's. By midnight I knew something was way wrong and we decided it was time to take her in. Her temp had been low earlier in the day, but it didn't set off any alarms for me. Isaac had had a fever, that's what I was looking for. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if we hadn't taken her in when we did.

So, here's highlights for us over the past 4 months:
~Sept. 17, Joel's dear grandpa, Papa, passed away. Thankfully Joel was able to visit with him the week before and say his goodbye's.
~Sept. 27, Madison came home from the hospital
~Oct. 3, Isaac turned 4
~Oct. 5, My parents came for 2 weeks
~Oct. 7, Joel turned 30
~Oct. 17, Madison had her baby blessing
~Oct. 18, We had Isaac's IEP meeting at school. He has made tremendous strides since starting school in Jan. In fact, he's most likely going to test out of special education and go to Kindergarten next year. It's actually pre-K for 4 yr olds, but if he passes, he'll go to 1st grade the following year. If he doesn't pass, he'll just repeat it as Kindergarten.
~Oct. 22, Joel went to a conference at Ft. Shafter and was introduced to the Col. for the intelligence unit there as well as the civilian who helps run that unit. The civilian just so happens to be one of Joel's old Col's that was his boss at NGIC when we lived in Charlottesville. He loves Joel and wants him to come work for him at Ft. Shafter. This means, we're staying in Hawaii for at least 3 more years. We're still trying to finalize the details, but we should be staying.
~Nov. 13, We went to the Laie Hawaii Temple open house. It was nice to be there with our children.
~Nov. 29, Isaac went to the ENT for a consult. He has big tonsils which cause him to choke and probably infected adnoids, so he's having surgery to remove those on Dec. 20th.
~Dec. 2, We put in a bid for our first house! It's beautiful and we really hope we get it. It's a short sale, so it will still be a while before we find out. I think we've driven by it every day this week. Will still be in Ocean Pointe. We love our neighborhood and our ward, so we wanted to stay here.

We're excited for Christmas. We haven't had very many together, so that makes it even nicer. I have most of my shopping done, but need to pick up a few more things. I also need to get my east coast boxes packed up and shipped. I mailed out of my Christmas cards today. We had fun taking pictures of the kids the other day for our cards.

Tomorrow we're going to the NICU Christmas party. I know Maddie's nurses will be surprised with how much she has grown. She's up to 10lbs 12oz., that's double what she was when she left the NICU.

Time to make dinner. I hope to blog sooner next time.

Madison Jane Pieper

2010-07-28T04:00:00.003-05:00

I guess it's time to blog, she is almost a month old....So our story starts on the morning of Wed. June 9. I dropped Isaac off with a sitter and went to my nephrology appointment. The previous weekend I had done a 24hr urine collection, to check the protein in my urine, so I was going to the doctor to find out the results of those labs. My blood pressure was 140/91, which wasn't super high for me, but what set off the bells was my protein count. It had more than doubled in 3 weeks. With the high BP and the protein, the nephrologist sent me to L&D to get checked out for preeclampsia. At this point I was only 22 wks 3 days pregnant. Viability of life at this point is about 5-10%. Of course this sent me into a little bit of hysterics. What in the world was I supposed to do with Isaac, since I had to stay in the hospital for at least one night? Will Joel make it home before I deliver? How long will it be before I deliver? By now, my BP was sky rocketing, which flipped out the L&D docs, so they started pumping drugs into me...I sent out a text to my friend Sara who's husband worked at the hospital and he came right over and gave me a blessing. This calmed me down some and I started thinking more clearly. I realized that the situation wasn't as dire as I first thought. My BP and my protein count were no where near what they were when I had Isaac. Also, my lab results were fine, which meant there was no need to deliver, as long as they could control my blood pressure...My friend Jess offered to watch Isaac for the night, so I knew he was taken care of. And I finally got to talk to Joel about 8 hrs after going to the hospital. I wasn't diagnosed with anything then, so we couldn't start the process of bringing him home yet.

By the next day, I was told I was going to be monitored through at least the weekend. Then, that evening they came in and said my protein had doubled again, since the one that had been done over the weekend and that I had preeclampsia. Now we could work on Joel coming home. We knew at this point I was going to be there until I delivered. A Red Cross message was then sent out to Joel, because he needed one of those in order to be able to come home. Because of inadequate wording, his chain of command was causing a hold up, so he had to have his doctors in Iraq call my doctors at the hospital to get an update. Finally, he was able to go on Friday morning. I must say I am very impressed with how quickly the military can get someone home when it is an emergency. Joel was pretty much constantly on an airplane from the time he left Iraq, except for about 8 hrs in Kuwait, when he got some sleep. He made it home by Sunday evening.

During this whole time, I had just been being monitored for my blood pressure and being treated for it. By Monday, they felt it was under control enough to move me from the L&D floor to the antepartum floor. This meant having a room with windows, because my previous rooms hadn't had any, it had been 5 days since I had even seen the sun. For the next 4 days, I hung out in antepartum. I had my IV pulled, because it had calcified in my arm and I wasn't hooked up to anything for a few days, but then I had a PICC line put in. This is a line that runs through the upper part of your arm into the vein by your heart. They can give meds through this line as well as draw blood. I was so glad to get this. This meant no more needles for labs twice a day!... Joel and Isaac came to visit every day and we thought we would just be "relaxing" here until we delivered. Then on Friday morning when they took my blood pressure, it was 180/100. Back up to L&D I went. They incresed my BP medicine as well as added another medicine. This time I got a nice big room with a view. Joel started spending the nights with me then, while Isaac spent the days going between friends houses and nights with Jess.

For the next week, the time was spent trying to keep my blood pressure under control. It was determined that it was never going to be at a normal level, it was always going to be high, so they picked a number they wanted to keep it under. All the while, they kept increasing the medicine. I had also started retaining fluid and my body was slowly swelling. That Friday, they decided they wanted to put in an ART line. This would constantly monitor my blood pressure, because the readings from the cuffs were sketchy at times. This particular line was put into the artery in my wrist. After a few hrs, we learned that this was something new for everyone on L&D, ART lines were only used in the ICU, so I was put on show and everyone came in to see it. This only lasted until the weekend nurses decided they weren't comfortable with it and I was sent to the ICU to be monitored. This was a joke!!! At that point I was 24 wks pregnant, so I had to be on the heartrate monitors so they could monitor Madison. This meant a nurse from L&D had to come with us to monitor the baby. So, it was me, Joel, two L&D nurses and an ICU nurse all cramped into a 10x10 room. Good thing we all got along. During the night though, the ART line clogged up and stopped working so it was removed, and I was moved back to L&D the next morning. They also did another urine collection that night in the ICU, and the protein results were the second highest my doctor had ever seen. I had also put on 30 lbs of fluid by this point. We knew we weren't going to go much longer at this point and we decided to fly Joel's mom out to take care of Isaac. She got here on Tuesday.For the next few days, things continued to get worse. I maxed on my BP meds and it was an hr by hr thing, depending on if they could keep my BP down or not. Madison also started having a few episodes where he heartrate would drop. I started having upper abdominal pain on Wed. which is a sign of HELLP, which is what I had with Isaac and the reason I had to deliver him. Then, on Thursday evening they did an ultrasound and found out that the umbilical cord wasn't doing very well. Blood flow had been cut down and baby wasn't really growing or getting the nutrition she needed.

The next morning, the docs decided to deliver. It was Fourth of July weekend, which meant lots of people were going to be on vacation and they wanted to deliver under controlled circumstances with a full staff instead of an emergency situation. At 9:30 the anesthesiologist came in to put in the epidural. It took about 6 times before they finally got it in. They wheeled me into the OR at 11am and preped for surgery. Right before they started cutting, they did the pinch test to make sure I was numb and I wasn't. Parts of me were numb and parts weren't. Apparently the epidural had pulled out. For the next two hrs, I had to lay on the operating table and let the epidural wear off. I couldn't move becuse every time I tried, I would throw up. After the epidural wore off, then they put in a spinal. They called in another anesthesiologist for this and it still took two or three trys before they got this in. Finally, we were able to get the surgery started. I didn't feel the cut, but once they started pulling, I started to feel it. By the time Madison was out, I was screaming in pain, my spinal was wearing off and I could feel everything they were doing. They started giving me medicine that made me loopy and I felt like I was in a bad episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, just tripping on drugs. I was scared to death but not able to talk or communicate. I was trying to scream but not sure if they could hear me. Joel said that they could tell by my face that I was in pain and it got the point where they had to knock me out and intibate me to finish the surgery. Apparently I got a bit combative with them and fought them as they tried to put the mask on my face. Thank goodness I don't remember doing this. Madison was born on 3:06pm and they finished sewing me up around 5pm. I was in the OR for 6 hrs. Because I was so unstable, I was sent to the ICU for monitoring, in super pain. I was on one of the controlled drips, where I pushed the button for the medicine. I guess I pushed the button so often that I couldn't even answer the nurse, so they decided to dial back how often I could medicate myself. I don't remember much of Friday night at all. Saturday I was a little more coherent, but still in pain. They decided to keep me in the ICU for another day, which meant I still couldn't go see Madison.

Meanwhile, in the NICU, Madison came out fighting and screaming. She had gotten two doses of steroids before she was born so her lungs were much more developed than Isaac's had been. She went directly on the si-pap instead of on the ventilator and the doctors were impressed with her. This all changed on Saturday night though. She started having problems with her blood pressue and difficulty breathing. They had to switch her to the ventilator and then to the oscillating ventilator as well as start her on BP medicine...Joel and I decided it was time to call in someone from church to help give her a blessing. He felt prompted to call Bro. Ed Bryce to come give Madison a blessing and he did. We knew things weren't looking very good, so Joel came back to the ICU and told them what was going on and they decided to take me to the NICU to see Madison. I was able to see her for about 5 min, before I got sick and almost passed out and they had to rush me back to my room... The neonatologist took xrays and found gas in her bowels. She was diagnosed with necrosis of the intestines. This was caused by her living conditions in the womb with the bad cord and nutritional deficiencies. This is something that 20% of preemies get. Either their bodies fix it themselves, or their intestines die and then the baby usually dies also. The pediatric surgeon wasn't giving us a very good outlook and told us that within the next 36 hrs we would know if she was going to live or not.

Well, having already seen one miracle happen in my life with the birth of Isaac and him surviving, we knew that Heavenly Father could certainly give us another if he so chose to. With each set of the xrays over the next 36 hrs, you could see the gas leaving her intestines. She also went from being maxed out on two BP meds, to being totally taken off of them. We had just witnessed another miracle!!! By the end of that week, her doctor's said that she had healed so quickly, that they will never know if it was really necrosis or not. We know it was healing power or prayer though. And I know her doctor's know that too, or at least the one who is a member of the church knows that.

I spent 4 more days in the hospital. The labs done right before I was delivered, showed that I had HELLP syndrome, so it was a good thing they delivered me when I did. I ended up putting on at least 35lbs of fluid. My legs were the same size from the top to the bottom including my feet. They were huge. The skin was so tight that I couldn't stand for anyone to touch them. Within a week of giving birth, I lost 45 lbs. I weighed less than I did when I got pregnant. I'm hoping to continue losing, but for now I need to wait for my incision to heal. Part of it busted open and is having a difficult time healing.

Madison is doing great. She is on a nasal cannula. She has gained about 4-5 oz and grew more than an inch. She is up to full feeds and loves her milk. It took Isaac months to get to this point. We're hoping and we belive that she will not have to spend 5 1/2 months in the hospital like Isaac did. We're just waiting on her to grow!!!

Thank you everyone for all of your prayers for our family!!! We know they were heard and answered!!!

20 wk ultrasound...

2010-05-25T01:41:00.004-05:00

I had 3 appointments in the past 6 days. Tuesday I had a visit with the nephrologist (kidney doctor). He checked the results of my most recent urine collection and was really pleased. In 6 wks, the protein level had only gone up 20pts, to 468. And the doctor said, everyone's levels go up during the second trimester. In addition to that, other things that they checked for had gone down and seem to be functioning like they should be. My blood pressure was also good, for me. He said they generally don't start medicating someone until their levels are around 1000-2000+ and with high blood pressure. Granted, we know this stuff can start quickly, but for now, everything looks good.

On Friday, I went to see my OB. I will only see him once more, on June 4, before he moves. I really like him. He knows what he's doing and he's covering his bases, even if he is just finishing residency. In fact, I like him 100% more than I did the senior doctor that I saw the other week when mine wasn't available. Some of the ladies from church have given me the name of another OB that they had who is really good and is also LDS, so I may ask to transfer to him...Anyhow, that appt. went well also and the doctor was pleased with everything.

Today, I had my 20 wk. ultrasound. Everything looks fantastic with Madison. She is right on target for growth and weight. It's so fun to see her on the ultrasound screen. The tech was poking at her trying to get her to open and shut her hand, so after she finally did, then she kept smacking at the camera for the next 5 minutes and waving her hands all over. It was adorable!. I go back on June 29 for my next growth scan. Which is also the week that I'll be 25 wks.... I know that I had a fantastic blessing, before Joel went back to Iraq, and I was promised that everything would be ok, as long as I did my part to stay healthy. I still worry though, how could I not. I know this pregnancy is completely different than with Isaac, so in my opinion, that is a plus. Just need to keep praying and having faith that we'll make it another 16 weeks.

Isaac only has 2 days left of school, then he's out until Aug.2. My house looked like a disaster area today, after he was home for 2 hrs, if that is any indication of what it will look like for the next 10 weeks, I may be crazy...I hope to keep him busy with activities and such for a big part of day while he's out of school. We'll be doing lots of craft time...On Thursday we are going to Sea Life Park (where Adam Sandler worked in 50 First Dates). Tickets are on sale to military for Military Appreciation month, so I thought we would take advantage of that. Hopefully he will be well behaved!!!

Hope everyone has a good week.

19 & 8

2010-05-18T03:44:00.003-05:00

My little cowboy!

What do these numbers stand for? The first, 19, is how far along I am, 19 wks. I have had so much fun shopping for little girl stuff. The first time I went I was completely overwhelemed and just bought a few things. The next time, I was more prepaired, and scanned over most of the racks before picking stuff out. Now I would say, I am a pro! I have gotten lots of adorable stuff at ridiculously cheap prices. I am pretty sure every single thing I have bought has been on sale for at least 50% off, but most of it for even more than that. And throw in discount coupons for spending a certain amount of money for the clothes I got from Carter's, and that knocks down the price even more. I also hit up the clearance rack at Target, where Circo sleepers were around $3.50 a piece and dresses were around $4.50. So much fun!!! Joel has asked me to please stop buying stuff though, because he wants to help pick out things when he gets home.

Which brings me to the second number, 8. That's how long it is until Joel is scheduled to leave Iraq, 8 wks!! How FANTASTIC!!!! He will be coming home in July, with the first group of guys flying back. I don't think these next 8 weeks can go by fast enough! He is so very ready to come home and we are ready to have him home... Poor Isaac is going through daddy withdrawal. And to make matters worse, one of dad's of a little boy he goes to school with kind of looks like Joel. Isaac always thinks it's Joel when he looks at him and then realizes that it's not. Today, that guy showed up in his ACU's and it really had Isaac going. So I had to catch him before he walked to him and tell him it wasn't daddy, but daddy would be home soon.That he's still working, but will be home in a few weeks. And Isaac kept saying, Daddy all gone. Daddy done, the whole way home from school. So, we had to talk to daddy when we got home from school... He also loves having male attention, so any guy who comes to the park with their kids, Isaac is all over them, wanting them to play with him. It really breaks my heart and it makes Joel want to cry. But, it's also nice to know that Isaac thinks of his daddy and misses him.

So, I absolutely love my little boy. He really amazes me with how much he has learned since starting school. He knows his shapes and colors. He can count and is starting to do one to one correspondence when counting. He is starting to identify letters. He is memorizing poems and songs and loves to recite/sing them....He really is one of the sweetest, nicest little boys. He say's "please" and "thank you". He loves to give hugs and snuggle. He is so friendly. I love that he's not a bully and never has been. And whenever anyone does something mean to him, he tells them "no". He's never been one to throw tantrums, when mommy say's no, that's what it means and he usually doesn't push me on it. I love that I can let him go play on his own and not have to worry too much about him getting into trouble, because most things that he would get into trouble with, he's never been interested in. (Even when he cleans out the silverware drawer, he usally doesn't mess with the knives. :D )...Does this mean he's always an angel, absolutely not. There are days when I'm ready to trade him in! Especially the days when we're out somewhere (usually the park) and he runs off from me and doesn't stop when I tell him to and almost runs into the road. Or when I turn my back for a second to get my food from the chashier and turn around and Isaac is not in the restaurant and I find him a couple of doors down, trying to get into Subway. Yeah, talk about heart stopping! Or, when I tell him not to dump out that bowl of cereal and he looks right at me and dumps it anyhow! But, for the most part, I would say I've been blessed with a wonderful little boy. Let's hope his sister is just as good!

This upcoming week will be busy with doctor's appts. I go to the kidney doctor in the morning for a check up. I go to the OB on Friday. Then next Monday is my 20 wk ultrasound. Hoping that things will continue with no major complications!

Hope everyone is doing well.

It's a GIRL!!!!!

2010-05-05T04:10:00.003-05:00

We're super excited!!!!...I had a doctor's appt. yesterday, but I didn't see my doctor because he wasn't available, so I had to see a different doctor. At my last appt. mine told me the next time I came in, he would tell me the sex of the baby. So, I was all excited to go to my appt. but was really annoyed when this new doc wouldn't do an ultrasound and told me that telling gender was his weakness, he wasn't good at it. So, on the way home I decided I wasn't waiting 3 more weeks until my 20 wk ultrasound and I called up First Look Ultrasound and scheduled an appt for today. Of course they were running behind, but it was for the best. Because, Joel wasn't home from work yet and he would have missed it. I took my laptop with me and we were able to webcam each other and he was able to see the ultrasound. How awesome is that!...And she was very cooperative for the tech. As soon as the tech looked, she knew it was a girl. Madie was just chillin most of the time. She had her arms propped up behind her head and her feet in the air. It was so adorable to watch her.

Everything is still chugging along so far. My blood pressure was up a little yesterday, but not at a level they would put me on medicine for. I am on baby aspirin though, just as a precaution. I have to do another 24hr urine collection one day this week, to check my protein levels again and then I have an appointment with the kidney doctor on Tuesday.

I would love to write more, but it's time for me and little Madison Jane to head to bed. We're sleepy.

Happy Anniversary!!!

2010-04-08T03:04:00.002-05:00

Today was our 4 yr anniversary. It certainly would have been nice to be together to celebrate, but obviously, that didn't happen. Instead, Isaac and I celebrated. We went out to dinner tonight to Kobe, for some hibachi. All my prego hormones have me craving mainland food, so I thought by going there, it would help. It did some, but it would have been better, if they actually made things like all of the other Kobe restaurants. First, they don't give you salad. Second, they don't have the yummy white sauce to dip your food in and pour all over your rice. They gave us some kind of mustard sauce and a ginger sauce. The ginger is fine, I like that, and that's what you usually get, along with the white sauce. At least you do at every other Japanese restaurant, except for the ones here in Hawaii. When I asked why they didn't have it, he asked me where I was from, then he said it's an east coast thing. I'll have him know, I ate hibachi in Arizona and they have it there too! And the third thing, they put ground beef in their fried rice, which oh by the way is $4 extra! It tasted ok, but it was odd. The dinner was still good though. Isaac sure liked it. He had 2 bowls of soup, almost a whole bowl of rice and about 1/3 of my steak and chicken! He was still asking for more when they cleared the table. I think he must have been a hungry boy this evening!...And just so I wouldn't have to keep fighting with him to stay in his chair, I took along his booster seat, so I could strap him in. It worked like a charm!

Isaac started preschool full time this week. Now he goes 6hrs a day instead of 4. It wears him out, even with the nap he takes at school now. He seems to be doing ok though...He certainly is doing so much better. He talks all the time now. He knows his shapes and some of his colors...He's also starting to sing along to songs, which is adorable. I guess he's starting to sing the songs at school too. But, at night time when I put him to bed, we always sing songs and out of the blue last week, he started singing along with me. I love it!

As far as I know, everything is going ok with the baby. I've had 2 ultrasounds and then last week, we listened to the heartbeat with the dopler. I don't have any appointments this week, which is a nice break...I'm being followed by the Kidney doctors now. I have protein and blood in my urine that they're keeping an eye on. Usually when you have this when you're pregnant it's either an infection or preeclampsia, but I have neither. My blood pressure is also at a good level for me. So, for now, it's a watch and see game.

Isaac and I had a good Easter on Sunday. It was nice and relaxing. We did an egg hunt at the park with the neighborhood kids and he had a blast!. Then for dinner, I made homemade bread, pork tenderloin and pasta salad. Nothing fancy, but it was good.

Hope everyone is doing well. I'm going to bed now. Goodnight!

We're having a baby!!!

2010-03-10T03:38:00.003-05:00

So, I haven't posted anything for a few weeks, because for the most part we haven't done anything. I've just been nauseous, so we've been sticking around the house.

Joel had perfect timing in his arrival home in Jan. Had he been a day or two later, none of this would be happening. I kind of felt like I was pregnant a few days before I was supposed to start my period, so I took a test and sure enough, it said "pregnant". I buy the ones that actually have the words, a lot less harder to mistake than a "+" or "-" or "=". Of course I was in total shock. Joel was thrilled, as always!

As of right now, we are 9wks. pregnant. My first ultrasound was yesterday and everything looked great. I started crying when I saw the heart beat and cried even more when I heard it. I was lucky enough to record it to my camera, so I was able to post it for Joel to hear. He was sending me text messages the whole ultrasound, so he knew what was happening as it was going on.

Of course we're not out of the woods yet. I know that once you see the heartbeat, your chances of miscarriage decrease drastically, but we still have a few weeks to go before we're out of that critical period...In addition to that, they're already tracking protein in my urine. It's at 400mg and should only be around 150mg. The OB says this is due to my high blood pressure. I've had that since having pre-eclampsia with Isaac. I am being monitored and she says it's not a high enough level to be too concerned about yet. I will do another 24hr urine collection in about 3wks, so they can check the levels again. From those results, they will decide if I should be put on medicine or see a kidney specialist, etc...

I've also been having a lot of lower back pain and some pain in the uterine/baby area. But, after researching this, it looks like this is all normal stuff. I don't remember it happening with Isaac though. Everything I have read says as long as there's no bleeding, everything is fine, and there's not. This was going on before the ultrasound too and it showed all was well.

The next few months are going to be very busy. I am due on 10/10/10.Because of the emergency surgery I had with Isaac, they had to cut my uterus vertically. This means I can't contract, for fear of ripping my uterus. This also means, I will be delivering by 36 wks at the latest. So, we will be having another preemie, but hopefully not another 25wkr.

Please keep us in your prayers, that everything goes well this time.

Great 2 Weeks!!!!

2010-02-04T00:20:00.008-05:00

What a fabulous two weeks we just had! Joel left about 48hrs ago and is back in Iraq now. I'm not sure if he's made it back to his base yet, or is waiting for a flight to his base, but he is in Iraq. Funny how they got him back there so quickly, but it took so long to get him here...

At the Children's Museum

We had so much fun when he was home. It was nice to have two weeks where he didn't have to work and we could pretty much do what we wanted... We went whale watching for my birthday. It was pretty neat. We didn't see anything spectacular, just a few tail slaps, but it was still cool. We went out to dinner as a family that night and had a great steak dinner. I got to eat for free, because it was my birthday... We went to the zoo one day and let Isaac pick where he wanted to go, which he really enjoyed... We went to the children's museum another day and Isaac was in heaven. Two hrs. of non-stop play, play, play!!!...We went to the beach one morning and the boys had fun building sand castles and swimming, while mommy watched. I took some pretty great pictures!...Joel and I went out on a date Saturday night. We went to eat at a restaurant called Sam Chuy's. It's Pacific Explosion food. Which pretty much means, fancy Hawaiian food. I stuck with steak, I figured it was the safest! After dinner, we went to the movies and watched "The Blind Side". If you haven't seen it, I suggest you do! AWESOME movie!!!! Well, not exactly the movie, but the story that the movie is based on. It was wonderful. I was crying at the end. Poor Joel says, "if we weren't in public, I would be bawling right now.". It really is that good!

Isaac also started preschool. He started a week later than we had planned. I got the physical paper filled out for him, but then his teachers were going to be at training for 3 days, so we decided to wait until the 19th to let him start. He seems to like it. Some mornings he gets sad when I have to leave and he cries, but usually he's good and then when I pick him up he's very excited!!! We've started introducing him to the potty. They take him every hour at school, but we're not that regimistic here. He has gone potty for us probably 5 or 6 times though.

First day of preschool.

So, we had a little car trouble last week. On Tuesday night, we were going to the Stake Center to get our temple recommends renewed and as I was backing into a parking spot, there's a loud bang and I look in my rearview mirror to see my window busted out! I had hit a palm tree! It was rainy and dark outside and this tree was right in my blind spot. I hit the tree at the exact perfect spot to bust my window. In the bottom right hand corner of the window, where it meets the tail gate. There was probably only one inch of the tree I could touch and I did it! Joel called me a miracle worker. Still not sure how I did it! Total fluke!!! So, because it was an at fault collision, we have to pay $500 deductible to get it fixed and it will take 4 days to fix, because they have to fix the tail gate too. Thankfully we have Joel's car as a back up. We decided to get the oil changed in it on Saturday morning. After waiting for 2hrs, they finally come out and ask if we had problems with the drivers side window. They had rolled it down and could only get it half way up. We had to order a $140 part to fix it and we have plastic taped across it now. I feel like I should put "FARM USE ONLY" plates on my cars for a while and yell, "here come the hillbillies" every time I drive down the road! LOL!
Broken Van Window

That pretty much sums up our last two weeks! Hope everyone is doing well.

Loving the heat and sun.....

2010-01-10T14:10:00.004-05:00

So glad to finally be back to our home! We had a wonderful vacation and I'm so thankful we were able to do that, but it's always nice to get back home....

We ended up having to buy commercial airline tickets for all but the flight out of Hawaii, because military flights just weren't working for us. However, the tickets we were able to purchase were all on sale and we still ended up saving probably $1000.

Isaac had so much fun playing with his cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles. I am so glad he had the opportunity to do that. He certainly made lots of memories and I took a few pictures to help him remember... Probably some of the most memorable was Animal Kingdom in FL and playing in the snow in WV. He keeps asking for everybody now that we're home. Too bad we all can't live closer together.

All 15 Grandkids

We got home Friday afternoon and just relaxed for a few hrs. at home. Then went out for dinner and grocery shopping that evening. Isaac fell asleep on the way home from the store and slept until 9am the next morning, about 13hrs...Saturday was busy with running errands. We had school shirts to buy, Isaac got a haircut, and we had to buy a new carseat. Isaac's was broken on the flight from Orlando to CA. (One of the arm rests was broken off, so there's just sharp plastic sticking up poking him in the arm. Technically, I could finish breaking it off and it would be usable. I think I will do that and put it in Joel's car as a spare.) So we had to do compairison shopping at about 4 different stores. We ended up getting an Eddie Bauer adjustable high back booster from the NEX. It was $95, but they were having a $10 off sale. However, when they rang it up, it came up as $75. I think we got a pretty good deal. It's one of the seats that starts out as a 5pt. harness, then switches to a high back booster, then just a booster. It should last for a few years... Our stroller also got broken on the first flight from CA to FL. It's just the handle and it still opens and is usable, so we're not going to replace that one just yet.

Isaac is supposed to start school tomorrow, but I think that is going to be put on hold. The school needs him to have a physical before he can start. Well, they told me this the week after he had his 3yr well child check-up, just days before I left on my trip. So, I dropped the papers off at Tripler and told them what I needed and to send the papers to my house when they were completed. I figured there was no need to do a new physical, he had just had one. However, there are no papers here at my house from Tripler, so I guess they never got filled out and mailed back. I also had left a prescription for PT with them and the therapist hasn't received them either. I should have known better than to drop them off at the front desk. I should have hand delivered them to the doctor myself!

The next few weeks should be quite exciting and fun in our house! Joel comes home for R&R for two weeks! He'll be here sometime towards the end of the week. We won't know definitely until probably Tues. or Wed. what day he will be here. We're planning on having Christmas, going out of dates, celebrating my birthday and going whale watching. It should be a wonderful time and I'm very excited for it!

Hope everyone is doing well!

sitting in the parking lot of Panera Bread....

2009-12-16T14:05:00.002-05:00

The 10 littlest grandchildren

So, we made it up to WV last week to visit with my family. Apparently WV really wanted me to miss Hawaii, because since I've been here, we've had one day that it has been above 40. It was below zero with the windchill factor the other day. I was told that it wasn't this cold until I got here. What a greeting!!!

Today Isaac and I are in VA, shopping. We came here to meet up with our old friends Crystal and Matt and baby Asher. We ate lunch with them, and then Isaac and I went to Kohls shopping. On our 2 minute car ride from Kohls to Walmart, Isaac fell asleep, so I'm parked in the Panera Bread parking lot using their wi-fi. I figured it's not cheating, I did eat lunch here earlier today.

Things are going well for us. Isaac is enjoying spending time with all of his cousins. What a treat that is.

Joel is doing well too. He's enjoying his new church calling. And he just finished up taking a history class. He'll take another class in Jan.

We're here until Jan.1, then we fly back down to FL. until Jan. 6th, when we fly to CA. Once we get to CA, it will be another waiting game to see how long it takes us to catch a military flight back to HI. Hopefully, it will only take a day, because Isaac is supposed to start school on the 11th, and Joel will be coming home for R&R on the 16th. If it takes too many days, I may just have to pay commercial to get back home. I sure hope not though.

Well, time to wake my kid up and finish shopping so we can head back across the moutain. Hope everyone is doing well!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T23:29:00.005-05:00

What a wonderful day it was. Our dinner wasn't until this evening, so we got to relax most of the day. I tried to stay clear of the kitchen, so I didn't get in the way. I contributed my part yesterday, by peeling and slicing apples for the apple pie and peeling and slicing vegetables for the stuffings, and helping with a few other things.

Dinner was really yummy and not crazy! It was just with Joel's parents and sister and his Aunt and her family. So, 10 adults and Isaac. Not bad all. We took family pictures before dinner which turned out really nice. I don't have a shot of the group picture though.

Me, Mimi and Jill

Our family (minus Joel)

Isaac had lots of fun today. We tried to take him to the park that's around the block, but it was locked and he was throughly upset. He knew where we were going and he was excited to play. So, when we got back to the house, Pop put together a tricycle I had bought for him as a christmas gift to stay at Mimi and Pop's house. Isaac was beyond thrilled. His feet are still too short to pedal, but he loves to push himself around the house and has mastered the 3pt. turn.

So excited that his bike was almost ready to ride!

Joel had a fun Thanksgiving too, considering where he is. They had a Turkey Bowl and played football. Then, his shop all had lunch together and they made them Thanksgiving dinner. After work he was able to Skype with us for a little over an hour....I am so thankful for modern technology that allows us to be able to keep in touch with each other.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Fun @ Animal Kingdom

2009-11-25T09:44:00.004-05:00

On Friday we decided to go to Animal Kingdom. We went to Magic Kingdom in May and quite honestly, I'm not so impressed. You have mobs and mobs of crowds, with very little things to do for small kids. There are the occassional play areas, but I think we'll wait a few more years before we go back there....So, since Isaac loves animals, I thought we should try Animal Kingdom. It was fantastic!!! The weather was perfect. It may have gotten up to 80, but it was very comfortable! And the crowds were not bad at all. In fact, we didn't have to wait for anything that we wanted to do. We got right in line and got on. We did the Safari ride to see all of those animals. We did the train ride to the conservation area to see the petting zoo. We saw the Lion King show, which was incredible (and Isaac was so tired he fell asleep, but he loved what he did see!) We played in Dino Land and did some rides there. AND, we saw tons of Disney characters and got our pictures taken with them. Isaac loved them. He was so excited! He especially loved Thumper the bunny. He still gets a big smile on his face when he sees the pictures.

Hugging Thumper

Florida has been so much fun. We've been doing lots of shopping and way too much eating! In fact, I think I've gained back those pounds that I lost. (Time to get myself under control again.) I've also been doing some crafting. I made a countdown to Christmas tree. It should be complete within the next day or two. The sign that says "Days Til Christmas" is being painted as we speak. I also made a christmas wreath for Joel and colored some ornaments with Isaac to send to Joel. And I started on a plaque to hang on our wall at home. I wanted one that said "Families are Forever" and I got the idea to make one from my friend Sarah. I've got everything done to it, except for the lettering. My friend Becky has a Cricit, so I'm supposed to get together with her in the next few days and she's going to help me with the letters.

I've finished all of the shopping for Joel. Two boxes were mailed out on Saturday and another will be ready to send soon. He also has a pair of running shoes that are being mailed directly to him from the place I purchased them.

Joel is doing pretty good. He had a few rough weeks, where he was having issues with one of his Captains, but after some intervention and a long sit down talk, everything has gotten better and they are now friends....He is preparing to run a marathon in March, so he's starting to run a lot for that. He also has a bike, so he's been biking a lot, which saves him lots of time going to and coming from work, which gives us more free time to talk!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Relaxing in FL...

2009-11-11T21:51:00.003-05:00

Isaac playing with Scout, his partner in crime!
We finally made it! We got here around 11pm Saturday night...Some of you were probably tracking the whole fiasco on Facebook, but I'll go ahead and tell you about it again. Our original plan to get here was to fly from Hawaii to San Diego and then from there to Jacksonville, all by military flights. Well, the flight to San Diego was changed from Tuesday to Monday and I was not able to make it because of other commitments for that day. So, the next flights to California were to Travis AFB. They were scheduled for Wed. Thurs. and Fri. My plan was to get there and take a flight to FL if they had one or fly commercial if I could find cheap tickets. Well, it ended up Travis didn't have any flights to FL for those days, so I ended up finding one way tickets for $220/person from Sacramento, which was about 40 min. from Travis. It wasn't all flights out of Sacramento, just a few each day...Anyhow, Wed. flight from HI only had 1 seat open, which doesn't work when there are 2 people. So, Thursday had 2 flights. We went down to the base at 5:30 for the first flight, which had 9 seats available. So, I signed up and my name was #3 on the list. As they started doing roll call, I was called to the counter and when I gave them my paperwork they said, "Sorry ma'am, we called you out of order. You're just a spouse, not enlisted." I had to step back and wait for them to continue down the list. Before they got back to my name, they had filled the 9 seats. They told me that the 11pm flight for later in the night had 40 seats on it and I was pretty much guaranteed a spot. So, we went back home and had some dinner then went back at 11pm. This time my name was #2 on the list. However, I was not called as #2. I had to wait until all of the enlisted people traveling with their families were called first, then it was my turn. The guy checked me in and then asked how old Isaac was and how much he weighed. I told him he was 3 and he weighed 27lbs. He told me to hold on a minute and then walked away. He came back a few minutes later and said that they needed to weigh Isaac. They weighed him and sure enough 27lbs. The guy then looked at me and said, "sorry, you can't go on this flight, we have too many infants. Isaac is #8 and we only have 7 infant life vests. He needs to weigh 35 lbs. Do you understand?" Of course, being highly aggrevated by this I said ,"Yes I understand. If my husband were here we would be on the plane." He said "No you wouldn't, you would still be #8." Wrong! My husband outranked more than half the other enlisted guys, we would have been on that plane.

So, the next flight out was 6am. We went home and slept til 4:30 then got up and went back down to try again. This flight had 13 seats. So, I went and put my name on the list again. I told them how I had been called for the last 2 flights, but had gotten booted from both and the reasons why. Then they said, "oh, you're traveling with a kid. How old is he and how much does he weigh? There are no infants allowed on this flight." Knowing that the "infant" cut off was 35lbs. I just about lost my mind! I said fine, then how many seats are open on the next flight, "zero". Great, now what? The next flights out aren't until Monday!...So, then the nice girl says, just wait a minute, I will call to see if they'll make an exception. After a few phone calls, she came out to the lobby and said, "you're going!!!"...I honestly have no idea what the big deal was with no infants. We were on a commercial airplane that had been converted for military use. The first 15ft. of seats had been removed. Other than that, it was perfectly fine. There were rows of seats and windows, just like any other commercial plane and they had oxygen masks and life vests! It was actually a fantastic flight! They don't require you to stay seated, so Isaac got to run around. They even took him to the cockpit for a few minutes.

We landed in California at 4pm. and they shuttled us by bus to the terminal. After going inside, I asked about transportation to the hotel. It was only a 10 minute walk, but with 2 suitcases, a stroller, a carseat, a back pack, a diaper bag, a purse and a 3yr old, that walk was impossible! So, the nice people at the desk called a cab for me. While waiting for it to arrive, I decided to go ahead and give the hotel a call, just to double check about rooms. I had called a couple of days earlier and they said I didn't have to make a reservation, just to get a room when I got there, they had hundreds open. Much to my surprise, when I asked about a room, they said they were booked up!..HMMMM? Now what was I supposed to do? I had only factored in enough money to stay at this hotel, on base, and not one on the economy, in Napa, CA!!!!! So, in tears, I called Latrisha, my cousin, who just got married in June and moved to Napa where her husband is from. She said they had an air mattress if I didn't mind sleeping on their floor. They were going to come pick us up, but it would probably be an hour or two. I let the people at the desk know what was going on and the nice manager opened up the dependents lounge for Isaac and I to stay in until they got there. It was a room with toys, tv's, movies, cribs, couches, recliners, etc....and we had it to ourselves!..

While we were waiting I went ahead and called Mimi and Pop and they helped me make reservations to fly out of Sacramento the next morning....I went ahead and called the main gate to let them know who was coming to pick me up and what kind of car. When Trish got there though, they wouldn't let her on, because she had just switched her car over to CA plates and insurance and she didn't have her insurance card yet. Well, I asked how far the main gate was from the terminal and the people at the desk said 2 miles, but you can call a cab...There was a nice couple who were there inquiring about flying Space A to Hawaii and they overheard the conversation and asked where I needed to get to. I explaned to them what was going on and the guy asked his wife if it would be ok for him to take us to the gate. She agreed and we went and loaded all of our stuff into his truck and started for the gate. While driving he was asking where we were from and all that stuff. I explained we were coming from Hawaii and going to FL and that Joel was deployed. He asked me if I had a church family in HI to help out while Joel was gone. I told him that I did. He then said, "Are they LDS?"!!! He was the bishop of one of the local singles wards there in CA!!!!...

So, we make it out to Trish and Rob and get everything loaded into their car and start for their house. We stopped for the Chick-fil-A on the way. We watched Ice Age 3 when we got there, then went to bed. The next morning we got up and drove to Sacramento to catch our flight to FL. We had no issues at all in Sacramento and arrived in Dallas to switch planes with plenty of time. It was supposed to be 40 minutes from the time we landed until our connecting flight took off and it was in a different terminal. The flight attendant told me how to get there and we breezed right through the airport. We arrived at our gate just as they announced they were having mechanical trouble and it would be a few minutes before we would start to board. Well, an hour and a half later, we got to take off. Isaac slept from the time we took off until we landed! It was great!....He was so excited to see his Mimi and Pop and Aunt Bean. I stopped the stroller and let him get out and he ran down the hallway yelling, "Mimi, Mimi" and jumped into her arms! It was precious!!!

So, although it was quite a trip and I never want to go through that again by myself, I can definitely see where people were put there throughout to help me get through!!!! And believe me, I have been very thankful for it while saying my prayers!!!

I've decided that I'm flying commercial back to CA. I've found tickets for $120. Once we get there, we'll fly military back to HI. Since I know what day I will be arriving, I can go ahead and reserve a room this time. Hopefully it won't take but a day or two to get back to HI from there.

For now, we are enjoying our time here in FL. We're still adjusting to the time change, but we're almost where we need to be. We've been eating good food and doing some shopping. Can't wait for payday Fri. so I can do Christmas shopping for Joel and get a box mailed to him.

On a final note, I've noticed people on facebook have been doing posts about things they are thankful for. I'm going to go ahead and do that here. I'm thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for the power of forgiveness. I'm thankful for the power of prayers. I'm thankful for the Holy Ghost who gives us comfort when we need it most. I am especially thankful for my husband who realizes that some of things in his life need changed and that he is working very hard to make those changes...Honey, I know you can do it! Remember to continue praying and reading and I will do the same!

Hope everyone is having a good week. Sorry it's such a long post, but it was a crazy week!!!

Trying to get home....

2009-11-05T00:58:00.003-05:00

We're still hanging out in Hawaii, trying to catch a military flight to California. I was told when I signed up for the program, that the Air Force has flights to CA daily. They have had 1 in the last week and they only had 1 open seat on it and that was tonight...They have 2 more scheduled for tomorrow night, but they have not released how many seats they have open yet. Hopefully, we will be able to get on one of those. Because we will have missed the connecting military flights to FL, we are going to fly commercial out of Sacramento. We can get one way tickets for $200/person. That is, every day except Friday!!! Thankfully, it only cost $30 to stay in the hotel on base. And my cousin Trish lives 25 miles from base, so she is going to take us to the airport, which is a huge blessing!...Tickets are going for about $800/person now to fly commercial from here to FL. Even if we end up getting one way tickets from FL back to CA, we will still end up saving hundreds of dollars! Our plan is to try to catch Air Force flights back though.

Isaac was Wubbzy for Halloween

So, Isaac had a blast on Halloween! Isaac loves to knock on doors and ring door bells all the time, so being able to do so without getting in trouble was great! But, people giving him candy for ringing their door bell, was fabulous! In fact he liked it so much, he tried to do it again on Sunday. He was trying to run to a house while we were at the park and he was yelling "trick -or -treat"... There's one certain house by the park that has a bunch of single guys in it. He knocks on their door so often, that they know his name. When we stopped by on Saturday when we were trick or treating, they said "hi Isaac". Then he went back on Monday evening and knocked and when they opened the door he ran inside! They wouldn't let him leave without giving him candy.

end of October...

2009-10-26T23:50:00.002-05:00

Gosh, can you believe how quickly this month went by? There's only a couple more days left to this month.

We've just been hanging out. We try to get out everyday to do something. Usually just a trip to the store to pick up something, but it's a chance to get out of the house...We usually go the park every evening, but that has been put on hold for the past week. Joel's schedule changed and the computer lab hours changed, so the time that he could get in to call us, was park/dinner time. After two days of him missing us, I was told I needed to stay home during that time so he could talk to us. LOL! That's his stress relief after a long night of working with ridiculous people! He's leaving on a trip tomorrow for a week, so hopefully we can get back to our routine.

Just a couple more weeks until we head to Florida. We're going to fly Military
Space-A. I've not figured out completely how it works yet, but I'm sure I will be a pro by the time we get back. I've been told that flights from here to FL are pretty much non existent. That means, we have to pick a destination somewhere as far east as we can get, then try to get to FL from there. I called the Air Force base in Tampa today and asked them what they would suggest about how to get to FL. They suggested that I try to get a flight to the base in Charleston, SC and catch another flight from there to FL...I have to go to down to Hickam Air Force Base tomorrow to put my name on the list to wait for an open flight. I am hoping that they can give me more details....Commercial flights to fly home are outrageous! They had dropped to $620, but are now $850 for the cheapest, with some up to $2000...That being said, I did purchase my tickets to fly to WV already. I found tickets for $29 going to and $45 coming back from. With all of the taxes and services fees, they came out to $125 per person, which isn't bad at all for a round trip flight. Plus $40 to check a bag. I get there on Dec. 7 and leave on Jan. 1.

Not really much else going on....Oh, I have lost 10 lbs. since I started watching my food intake. I really need to start walking. The nutritionist says I need to walk 10,000 steps a day (5 miles). I've only done that once since I started. I know it will help though.

Hope everyone is doing ok!

I Am A Child of God

2009-10-14T04:27:00.002-05:00

"I Am A Child of God" is one of my favorite church primary songs. I sing this song to Isaac everynight as we're having snuggle time before bed. The lyrics are as follows:
I am a child of God,
And he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home
With parents kind and dear.

Chorus
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do
To live with him someday.

I am a child of God,
And so my needs are great;
Help me to understand his words
Before it grows too late.
Chorus

I am a child of God.
Rich blessings are in store;
If I but learn to do his will
I'll live with him once more.
Chorus

I am a child of God.
His promises are sure;
Celestial glory shall be mine
If I can but endure.
Chorus

Today I read 3 more verses that someone has created to fit into this song, that deals with a family losing a little child. They were written into a comment on the Stansels blog, to console them on the loss of their precious little daughter. This makes 4 out of the 6 sextuplets who have gone back to our Heavenly Father.

These verses are as follows:
I am a child of God and he has called me home.
My earthly journey's through but still,
I do not walk alone.
He leads me, guides me,
walks beside me, helps me find the way,
He welcomed me with open arms. I live with him today.

I am a child of God and I have gone ahead
My earthly life was brief but oh, such peace and love you gave
You loved me, held me, stood beside me and though I cannot stay,
You gave me much to help me and I will live with him today.

I am a child of God and I will wait for you
Celestial glory shall be ours if you can but endure
I'll lead you, guide you, walk beside you, help you find the way
I'll welcome you with open arms, One bright Celestial day

The words of these verses made me cry as soon as I read them. I thought back to 3 years ago, when my little Isaac was fighting to live and how close we came to losing him.

My heart was also breaking for the Stansel family. Can you believe that their daughter just died and they were getting horrible comments from people about how they are monsters for not doing selective reduction and for putting these children through so much pain. And how they are being punished, for going against God, because he made her infertile for a reason and she chose to use infertility treatments to get pregnant. Ridiculous I tell you! How can people be so cruel and heartless?!

Slowly climbing the growth chart....

2009-10-10T02:33:00.003-05:00

This is where I found Isaac at tonight after we got home. I brought bags in from the store and he was supposed to be following behind me. When I went outside to check on him, he was in the pool, with his clothes and shoes on, swimming with his new float! It rained while we were out and filled up the pool, which is always empty!

This is us walking to the Hale Koa to swim! It is so pretty there. I should take pictures of that area some time. There's lots of beautiful trees and huge bougainvilla bushes. There's a tree here called a sausage tree, because it has these long vines that hang down from it that have big pods on them that look like sausages and they have about 2 or 3 of these trees in this big grassy area by the Hale Koa. Very neat looking!

Isaac had his 3 year well child check up this afternoon. (Longest appt. ever! Will give details in a minute.) He was 27 1/2 lbs. and 37 inches tall. This means, he's gained about 2lbs in a year. Not so good, but no one seems too concerned about it except me. I've started him on a daily Nutripals drink and have finally gotten him to start taking gummy vitamins...So those marks get him into the 6th percentile for weight and the 14th for height. At least he's still going up the chart though!

So, back to the appointment. It was a 2:30 appt. and we were in on time, we finished at 4:00! We were lucky enough to get stuck with the new resident, who is in her first year of residency, first rotation in the peds clinic. She's only been here since July. She's very nice, but I knew just as much or more about pediatrics as she did. It was very obvious that I was the teacher and she was the student, she even admitted it. We also got to spend lots of time with one of the Developmental Pediatricians, who was in charge of the clinic for the day. I had to go over every detail of Isaac's development. Thankfully, we've had two assessments within the past 2 months, so I knew exactly where he was developmentally. Then, the Dev. Ped. offered to do another in depth evaluation for me, incase I wanted more information about Isaac's development. Finally, after about the third time of them offering to do that evaluation, I told them that I was an Early Interventionist and knew what was going on. Maybe I should have thrown that in at the beginning and saved myself an hour!..Then the resident took it upon herself to become Isaac's primary care physician, without me asking. She just logged in to the computer and did it and was like "Horray, I figured it out the first time!" I didn't know what she was doing so I asked and she told me she switched him, so that she is now his physician. Not that I care, but it's like she thought we were BFF's or something! I thought she was going to invite herself to dinner, she walked us through the clinic and out to the hallway. I'm surprised she didn't ask for my phone #. I have no idea what her last name is, but I can tell you that her first name is "Michelle", because we were on a first name basis!!!

This week was a pretty good week for us. Joel has been gone for a month now! Hopefully the next 11 months will go by as quickly as this one has!...On Monday we went to Kaneohe, which is on the other side of the island, and we did a little shopping. Found some good deals at Childrens Place. I got 7 shirts for $28, to include 3 polo's and 4 long sleved. I know the prices will drop some more, so I should go to the outlet to see what they're selling for there...On Tuesday we went to the beach. Isaac had fun playing with some of the locals!...Wednesday we did a little bit of shopping at the NEX...Thursday we went swimming at the Hale Koa...The heat has been horrible here! It has been so hot and humid that you can't stand to be outside. It feels like FL right now! We had a huge rain storm come through this afternoon and I was hoping it would cool things down, but I think it made it even more muggy!

Wednesday was Joel's 29th birthday! Happy Birthday honey, I love you and miss you!

Also wanted to send out a congratulations to Carrie and Rick on the birth of little Phoebe Jane, who was born on Isaac's birthday!

Happy 3rd Birthday Isaac

2009-10-04T14:23:00.005-05:00

My sweet little boy turned 3 yesterday. How quickly 3 years have passed since that scary October day in 2006...We started the birthday celebration Friday night by openeing a couple of gifts so daddy could watch on webcam. Then Saturday, I started the day off by waking him at 6:30 by singing the Happy Birthday song. He wasn't interested until I said birthday presents, then he jumped out of bed. We were on our way to have a yardsale, so I only gave him one present then, a baseball tee and bat with balls. It was a "hit"!! After the yard sale we came home and opened the rest of gifts, while the whole Pieper clan watched on webcam. The big present this time was his new tri-cycle.... I had asked him what he wanted for his birthday earlier in the week, then threw out a couple of ideas, to include a bike, which we had intented on getting him all along. He liked the bike idea, then everytime he heard the word "birthday" the rest of the week, he always said "bike". It was too funny!...In the evening,we had a little party with a couple of families from church that we've made good friends with. They each have kids in nursery with Isaac. There were 5 kids total and they all had a blast!...I think it was a pretty fun day for him!

So, it's been 3 1/2 weeks since Joel left. The time has gone by quickly. I hope the rest of the time continues to go by so fast...We've been busy with the pre-school evaluations. We have an elibigility meeting scheduled for Oct. 29, so we will find out then if he will be accepted into the special needs preschool.

We went to the beach twice last week. It was so much fun! The lagoon was not crowded at all. We were even swimming by ourselves for a while...We will probably keep going a couple times a week until we come home for Thanksgiving. Once we get back from vacation, the water will be too chilly for our liking, so we'll have to wait a month of two until it warms back up.

Happy 1 Year in Hawaii Anniversary!!!

2009-09-22T15:48:00.009-05:00

Today marks the one year anniversary of our first flight over the pacific. Too bad we're not together to celebrate. That's ok though, we're doing fine.

Joel is now in Iraq. He says the weather is not too bad, but he's ready to come home and get out of the Army. He's bored to death. There is very little work for him to do, so he has to find ways to occupy his free time. He doesn't have internet in his room, so he has to use the internet lab, but that's been working out ok. He's trying to register for classes, so if everything goes well, he will start his first one on October 14th. I told him to look at his situation as having a year to "study abroad". It may not be such a nice location, but he should have plenty of free time to get some school out of the way. He should be able to finish up his associates degree and start on his bachelors.

Isaac and I have kept ourselves pretty busy. We've had a few doctor's appoinments for me. I'm going to lose weight. There I said it. It's going to happen. I was trying to get a prescription weight loss pill, but the doctors at Tripler are refusing to do it. They wanted me to go to a Healthy Lifestyles clinic, but I wouldn't be able to get in to see them until Feb. Now, they have referred me to a nutritionist, so I go on Thursday to meet with them. I have also now been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. I'm supposed to be fitted for a C-Pap machine in a few days. I probably won't use it though. That thing freaked me out during my sleep study. Not to mention that it's extreamly loud! I'm living here alone and I will not have that thing running at night so that I will not be able to hear what's going on in my house! That's another reason for the weight loss. I know as soon as the weight is gone, the apnea will be better...Another plus to losing weight, is for pregnancy. I'm sure that had a lot to do with Isaac's prematurity and for the miscarriage last month. Hopefully weighing less, will make getting and staying pregnant easier.

So, I'm attaching pictures of what our outside plants and fish looked like last year at this time and what they look like now.

Now, here are pictures of what they look like today.

The tallest plant is well over my head now. We have to trim it back every couple of weeks, or it will be way bigger.

This was pretty much a dead stick in a pot when we moved it. We started watering it and now we have this. Too bad the whole tree didn't survive, but we have this one branch and it's a very pretty.

These are the rest of the plants out back. Most of these are our second batch of flowers. The first one's died while we were on vacation. The lady who watered our plants for us only watered the ones beside the pond and didn't water the ones on the other side of porch.

These are the flowers that are on our front steps. Yes, the ones in the back are mums. They're not doing too well, but they've survived for more than a month now. They certainly don't get as pretty as they do back home, but I wanted to get them to remind me that it's fall. You certainly wouldn't know that it is fall here. September is the hottest month of the year!

We had one pond fish die while we were gone and we had 3 die from our tank. Two were poisened accidentally when we seperated them and one just died right before Joel left. Which leaves me with just 3 in the tank, thank goodness.

These last pictures are of the airshow that Isaac and I went to the other day. I thoguht it was awesome, Isaac didn't care for it much. They decided to surprise attack the crowd and it was slightly loud and freaked him out. Plus, it's very hard for Isaac to track fast moving objects because of his vision problems, so he had a hard time seeing the planes.

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry for such a long post. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Good idea not so good afterall....

2009-09-16T19:53:00.004-05:00

I got a coupon in my email yesterday from Sears because Isaac is turning 3 in a couple of weeks. It was for a free sitting fee, plus 20% of your purchase. In addition to this, military is supposed to recieve 20% off each purchase, which can be combined with any coupon or package. So, a sheet of pictures that are normally $7.99 should be $4.80. I thought it would be nice to get them for his birthday and to send one to Joel as his birthday gift, since their birthdays are only 4 days apart....I was just planning on getting one or two sheets, because we just had the wonderful family pictures taken by Casie a few months ago....Anyhow, I schedule the appointment for 11:30, it's after breakfast and before lunch and nap. Isaac should be very cooperative. NOT! He was horrible. He would not sit still for anything. He would not look at the camera. He ran, he kicked, he did everything but what he was supposed to. And I was chasing him the whole time trying to get him to cooperate. I think she may have gotten 6 or 7 pictures, none of which he is smiling in and maybe one or two where he looked at the camera... I looked like I had stepped out of a sauna when I left that place. I was covered in sweat. It was dripping from my face....In addition to this, when I went to order the pictures, they would only recognize one 20% off. I could either use my coupon and get a free sitting fee and 20% off, or my military discount, not both. I pulled up the website on my iphone and showed them what it said about military discounts, but they disagreed with me. To quote the website "Can be combined with any advertised or in-store portrait offer". Am I interpreting this wrong. I think it means no matter what type of coupon you have, you take an additional 20% off for military....So, I ordered 2 sheets, which came out to $13+, instead of $9+. Had they given me what I was entitled to, I may have ordered more...So, here are the pics.

Well, one week down 51 more to go. Joel is able to call about once a day. He has bronchitis. Thankfully it's not swine flu, which is also going around. It took them more than 40hrs to get there due to delays at all the places they stopped to refuel. He is in Kuwait now and should be leaving for Iraq in a few days. The temperature is about 110 degrees everyday. They go to bed between 8-9pm, then get up at 4:30 to workout, because that's when the weather is the most comfortable. Not that he has been working out because he's sick, but he still gets up then.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Saying our goodbye's

2009-09-10T21:18:00.002-05:00

We said our goodbye's last night. Joel had to be there at 2am for weapons issuing. So, we didn't even go to bed. We had planned to just drop him off, but then I decided to stay for a while. They were supposed to leave at 3, then 3:30, by the time 4am rolled around and the buses hadn't arrived, I decided to go ahead and go. I figured I could cry in my car just as well as stand there and cry. So, we said goodbye and then the buses pulled in. Joel will have at least 24 hrs of plane travel, possibly longer. Hopefully I'll hear from him this evening sometime.

So, now I need to keep myself busy. Find projects to complete. Clean my house and get rid of the stuff we don't want. (That will start in a day or two. Planning on having a yard sale in the next two weeks.) Hoping friends and family will come visit, so I can have things to look forward to. Planning on coming home for the holidays...Joel will get to come home for 2 weeks in February. Looking forward to that!

I can do this! (I just need to keep reminding myself that.)

The Final Countdown...

2009-09-09T03:38:00.005-05:00

We have a little over 24 hrs left together, if the Army doesn't change it again for the 3rd time... This morning Joel went in to work to do some errands, while Isaac and I stayed around the house. Then this afternoon we went to Ko'Olina to swim and watch the sunset. It was beautiful! I think we took about 100 pictures, so I'll post a couple.

We've been having friends over for dinner, going to birthday party's, picnics, and one last good meal out in the past 5 days. We got $200 cash back from credit card points last week, so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner. We went to Red Lobster for the all you can eat shrimp for $20. (Probably cheaper on the mainland.) It was fabulous. We ate like pigs! Definitely got our money's worth. I think it was the best restaurant outing we've had since we've been here...We also figured out that Isaac has discovered his pitching arm, as he was chucking shrimp across the restaurant. Thankfully he didn't hit anyone!

Two weeks ago we went hiking at the Makapuu light house. It was a gorgeous hike. I was proud of myself for making it to the top. I was also proud of Joel for being so patient to me and allowing me to stop no less than 20 times. We had a little incident on the way back down the mountain though. My shoe got caught in a crack in the pavement and toppled me over onto my knees. I got scraped up pretty bad, but I'm mostly healed now. There was a nice couple who was walking behind us and they stopped to help me up. Once we got to the bottom of the mountain, there was a police officer waiting for me witha first aid kid. The nice couple had flagged him down and told him what had happened. How nice of them! So I got myself cleaned up and bandaged up and then we came home and napped!

We had a meeting with the special needs preschool last week at the elementary school that's just around the corner from us. Once Isaac turns 3 next month, he will no longer be getting therapy unless if he qualifies for the special needs preschool. We're now getting him evaluated by the school therapists to see where he stands developmentally. They want him to have a year and a half delay to qualify. Which means at 3, they want him to function at an 18 month old level. According to the most recent tests by his therapists he sees now, he's functioning right around 24months, give or take a few months in some areas. This mean's probably no special needs preschool, even though he's still delayed. It was mentioned that we send him to a normal preschool, which is out of pocket money. They cost around $800 per month here to send your kid to preschool and they have to be potty trained. Not going to happen!

I'd like to say congrats to all of my newly pregnant friends. In the last 4 weeks, I've found out that 11 of you are expecting!

Hope everyone is doing well! I'm going to go enjoy spending the last night with my husband. ;)

Hanging in there....

2009-08-19T01:43:00.002-05:00

I had my surgery last week. Everything went well, except that I had to be intubated because they kept loosing my airway. They're pretty sure I have sleep apnea (Joel is too and had mentioned this to me just days earlier), so I have an appointment to meet with my physician next week to get the process started to treat this.

Countdown to deployment has officially begun. We have 3 weeks left. We're trying to do fun weekend activities and take pictures and videos.

I'm posting a link to a blog that I came across from a church news letter that was sent to me. There is a family in Houston who had sextuplets 2 weeks ago and they are members of our church. The babies were born at 23 weeks, which is right at the minimum point of viability. Two of the babies have passed away and the other 4 continue to struggle. I've been reading their blog almost daily since recieving the link for it. I'm asking that you guys will keep this family in your prayers as they go through this difficult time. Here is the link to their blog http://stanseljourney.blogspot.com/

Hope everyone is doing well.

Friends + zoo + aquarium + swimming = fun

2009-08-04T14:28:00.003-05:00

We've been doing lots of fun things for the past few weeks. Our friend Becky and her mom came to visit from Florida for a week. We had fun spending time with them and showing them around.

Isaac and I have been spending lots of time swimming lately, which he absolutely loves. We met some of our friends at the Hale Koa (military hotel in Waikiki) last week for an afternoon of swimming. Then on another day we had a play date and got together with a bunch of other moms and kids for another afternoon of swimming.

On Saturday, we decided to do a family day out. We packed a lunch and headed to the zoo, which we were actually pretty impressed with for being such a small zoo. We ate our picnic lunch on the big open grassy field by the kids petting zoo. After the zoo, we went swimming again at the Hale Koa for about 3 hrs. Then, we went to the aquarium. By this point, Isaac was asleep in the stroller, so Joel and I got to enjoy the aquarium without having to chase Isaac. Once we got home, we went to the park across the street and played for a while, then finished the night off with a movie. The only bad part of the day was the $35 parking ticket we got at the zoo for an expired meter. Apparently the meter I paid that was in front of my car was not the right meter for my car. My meter was to the right of my car on the other side of a big tree! We will definitely fight to get it waived or reduced!

So, I'm sure Joel will be upset with me for posting this, but this is my way of getting through this process. After a year of trying to get pregnant, we finally got pregnant in May, with twins. However, neither of them made it, and I am now scheduled to have a D & C on Monday. We had been waiting to break the news to most of you guys until a heartbeat was detected, but it was just an emotional rollercoaster. We had to go to the doctor every week for an ultrasound. One week, things wouldn't look good, the next week they would look fantastic. About week 7 though, things started slowing down and growth wasn't really happening. By week 8 still no growth, then week 9 both had disappeared, just the sacks are left. We've opted for the surgery, so we get things cleaned out and get a fresh start. We'll try again next year when Joel gets back from his deployment.

So this has been our life for the past few weeks, hope everyone is doing well.

We're home....

2009-07-03T02:08:00.004-05:00

We've actually been home for a week, I just haven't had time to blog. Vacation was great. We emjoyed spending time with both sides of the family. Isaac walks around and starts yelling out names, followed by "where are you?" He had SO much fun playing with all of his cousins, uncles and aunts. He found a picture of my brother and his family when we got back. He likes to look at it often and when you ask him who is on it he says "Timbo". He really liked Uncle Timbo...

What perfect timing it was for us to be home when we were. We were just now supposed to be coming home, but plans changed and we quickly learned that Heavenly Father had a hand in it... Joel's Grandpa Pieper passed away the day after we got to Florida. He had heart troubles the Saturday before I left to come home and was on life support. He made it through his emergency surgery, but was left brain dead. There was no way we could have made it home that quickly for a funeral, the tickets would have been outrageous.... I was also in WV when my cousin was married, so I got to go the temple to see her be sealed to her new husband, which was very special. And I got to see a lot of my other cousins at the reception, which was a lot of fun.

The next couple of months are probably going to go by quicker than we would like. Joel deploys in September for 12 months, which I am not looking forward to. (Dealing with less mess, yes. But being alone raising Isaac, not so much. He has too much energy for one person, we need to tag team.)

Hope you enjoy the pictures. We took Isaac to Disney World one day, so there are some from that. We also had one of our friends, Casie, take family pictures for us, which turned out beautifully! Hope everyone is doing well..

Vacation

2009-06-18T13:11:00.002-05:00

Sorry no posts for a while. We're on vacation with very limited Internet access. We'll be heading back to Hawaii on the 25th. Isaac is having a blast with his cousins. Joel is hating bachelor life and can't wait for us to get home. Will post pictures once we get back home.

Visit from Grandma and Grandad....

2009-05-16T03:05:00.006-05:00

My mom and dad made the 12 hr flight to Hawaii. What a trooper my mom was! She swears she's never coming again though, the flight is way too long...We had a great time showing them around. They got to see all of the sights and eat great food and spend time with Isaac. Isaac loved having them! He gets bored with just Mommy and Daddy, which is mostly just Mommy all of the time.

We leave for Florida on Tuesday. Joel is going to meet us there. He's been in Georgia for the past week and flys to Tampa on Sunday for training. Thankfully we have some pretty good flights. We leave here at noon on Tuesday and fly to LA. We get there at 8pm and leave at 10pm and have a night flight to Orlando. This means that Isaac should sleep from LA to Orlando! (Cross our fingers.)..We'll be in FL until June 5, then we fly to WV until June 22. So we'll get to spend time with both sides of our family. Joel isn't going to be coming to WV though, he only gets two weeks off, so that's being spent in FL.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us, getting packed and getting the house ready for us to leave. Hope everyone is doing well...

Clomid cycle #2

2009-04-23T21:21:00.003-05:00

Today was the start of cycle #2. The dosage last month was enough for us to ovulate, we just didn't get pregnant. So, we'll give it another go this month. We also have to schedule appointments to have an HSG done, which is an ultrasound of my falopian tubes. And Joel has to have blood tests and a sperm count done. Apparently there is a month waiting list for Joel, go figure!

I got the shoe's exchanged yesterday without any problems. The new shoes will definitely last for a while. They are almost too big, but Isaac seems to walk/run just fine in them...Oh and Carrie, thanks for the heads up. How I wish we had a Khohls and a Penney's! We just have Macy's, Sears and Nordstroms. We can however, order from Penney's and they have a delivery center that we can pick up at. We might have to do that for future shoes. Or better yet, I can go to the Stride Rite outlet when I'm in Florida and get more.

So Joel and I completed a project last week that we are very happy about. We made a picture book...I order my pictures online sometimes from shutterfly and they sent me a coupon to get a free 20 page hardback 8x8 book. You get to design everything about it. You pick which pictures you want, how many you want per page, what color you want the page to be, the font, etc...We made a book about the last 3 and half years of our life. It ended up being 40 pages, but it was only $1 per each page after page 20. So we paid $20 total. This is probably something that we'll do every three or four years, in addition to the scrapbooks that I make. (Seeing as how they are way behind.)... We're still waiting for it to arrive though. It was mailed from California last Friday, but we haven't gotten it yet.

Well, gotta go. I need to pick up the house a bit. Joel and his cousin Nick are on their way home from work. Hope everyone had a good day!

new shoes....

2009-04-22T00:31:00.004-05:00

Much of today was spent on a hunt for tennis shoes for Isaac. Isaac got new tennis shoes for Christmas, but they had to be disposed of on Sunday, because he crawled through PEE in one of the tunnels at the play ground that we were at on base. Talk about disgusting! We stripped him down right there and threw everything in the trash. I was not about to put that nasty smelling stuff in my car and drive it home to be washed. He was also wearing a brand new shirt that his Great Grandma Pieper had sent him for Easter. GROSS!!!!...
It just so happens that Isaac is a little flat footed and his ankle muscles are still weak, so Isaac needs shoes with arches. The ones that he got for Christmas were cute Sesame Street shoes from Walmart that cost $11 and believe it or not, they had an arch. So, we went to Walmart, thinking we would pick up another pair of those, only to discover that Walmart no longer had them, or any other shoe in his size. So, off to the Navy Exchange. They had no shoes there with an arch either and the ones they did have were ugly. They suggested Ala Moana Mall. So, we head down there and check out Macy's first. We just got a great deal on a pair of shoes for Joel, so I thought maybe they still had that sale going on. Well, Macy's doesn't sell children's shoes. They suggested Nordstroms, who sales Stride Rite, or Sears. So we leave there and start heading towards the other end of the mall and come to Nordstroms first. We went in there and looked at shoes. Sure enough they have Stride Rite and any other ridiculously priced type of shoe you could ever want. The ones that we found to try on, with arches, were $40, which seemed to be the cheapest pair that I picked up. The lady measured Isaac's foot, which was almost a 7, but suggested getting a 7 1/2. I agreed and off she went and got the shoes. Isaac tried them on and ran around and they fit quite nicely. Not wanting to take the first pair that I found though, I decided to go to Sears to see what they had. I found one pair of Sketchers in their rats nest of a shoe section, that were a 7 and they were only a few dollars cheaper than the Stride Rite. After consulting with Joel, we decided to go with the Stride Rites, because they are specifically made for proper orthopedic foot growth in children, and they were 7 1/2 which means they are going to last a bit longer than 7s. Back to Nordstroms we go and pick up our outrageously priced shoes which we put on hold. By this time, I had blisters on my big toes, because I wore a crappy pair of sandals, not anticipating walking so much. (Maybe I should have bought me a new pair of shoes too!) After buying the shoes, we stopped in the food court and got some lunch then headed to the car to come home. Once we got to the car, I pulled out the new shoes to inspect them and put them on Isaac. Much to my surprise, the shoe's were size 7, not 7 1/2 as I had discussed with the sales lady. Crud! I hadn't even thought to look at the shoe size in the store. I just assumed they were 7 1/2. It was already 1:30 by this point and I had to get home for Isaac's OT appointment and my feet were killing me, so we left. Now I have to go back tomorrow and exchange the shoes. You better believe that I will be parking at Nordstroms this time, not clear on the other side of the mall like I did today! Who would have thought buying a new pair of kids shoes would be such a task!

Easter was fun. The Easter Bunnny brought Isaac a basket with some candy, a Sesame Street coloring book and a Mr.Potato head, which was a hit! He looked absolutely adorable in his Easter outfit.

Not much else going on. Joels' cousin Nick came back from Iraq last week, so we've had him over a few times because he's stationed here...2 weeks until Grandma and Grandad come! How exciting!...Hope everyone is doing well.

Three Years!

2009-04-09T02:29:00.003-05:00

Joel and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary yesterday. I wouldn't necessarily say celebrated, unless if you count waiting at a restaurant for him to show up for lunch for an hour and a half, while trying to keep a 2 year old entertained who is strapped in a high chair and whom desperatley needs a nap. (Not Joel's fault. He was waiting for contractors to finish up their morning lectures and they ran over by 50 minutes.) Then for dinner, order fast food burrito's and quickly inhale them, so we could get home in time for Joel to teach scouts....Our Anniversary will be celebrated Friday. Joel is off of work and we already have a sitter lined up.

Joel had a nice time in DC, but was ready to come home. He got to go see some Museums, watch a Wizards basketball game, see some movies, meet up with some of our old friends and eat great food for 2 weeks. He even did some shopping. He called me up 2 nights before he was to come home and asked me if he could buy himself some new dress clothes. He saw a nice suit jacket, shirt, ties, cuff links, tie tacks, etc...at Nordstrom and everything was on sale. I told him sure, but not to go over board. He ended up spending a little over $200, which kind of upset me. We have lots of upcoming events that require money and I had called off our Maui anniversary trip because I didn't want to spend that much money....Anyhow, he calls me the next day and tells me how he wore the new clothes to work and everyone liked them and he couldn't wait to show them too me. Which, I am just busting up laughing, picturing this, what I think is going to be hideous, outfit.....So, as soon as he gets in the door Wednesday evening, he makes me sit down on the couch because he wants to model his clothes for me. I sit down and he pulls out a box and says here, look at my new cuff links. Much to my surprise, when I open the box, there's a pearl necklace and earrings. He didn't buy clothes after all, he got me an anniversary gift....They're not everyday pearls. It's jewelry to wear to formal events, but it's pretty. They're a gold/tan color. He said he thought about getting me earrings to match the pearl he had gotten me for my birthday, but it's a hard color to match up with. You actually need the necklace to compare. What a great husband I have!

We're back to one vehicle again, at least for a little while. Joel had to go in to work Thursday morning, no leave for jet lag, and I got a call from him at 10:30. He asked me what I was doing, then says to pick him up a new uniform and come meet him at his office. Why? (I have to ask this because he does not say.) Joel wrecked his motorcycle! He was out running errands, missed his turn and tried to pull a U-turn. Went too fast and couldn't cut it far enough and hit a curb. This all took place in front of the gate to the base, so everyone jumps out of their cars to come help and the Military Police come running from the guard shack. Thank goodness his pride was hurt more than he was. He had some scrapes and bruised up his ankle. He had all of his safety gear on and his uniform, to include his boots, which really saved him from having some really severe injuries...As for the bike, it's going to take at least $500 to fix all of the broken pieces, not including the paint to fix all of the scratches...So much for saving money to ride a motorcycle, instead of purchasing a little car. Joel also realizes this now and told me he's going to buy a car once the bike stops running. What he doesn't know is, he will be getting a car when he gets back from Iraq, there is no negotiating that. I may buy it while he gone, so he can't argue with me.

Isaac went to his first easter egg hunt on Saturday. We're Friends of the Waikiki Aquarium, so we were invited to attend their "seahunt". They have a big fenced off lawn that they covered in plastic eggs and the kids got to run around and gather eggs that were filled with goodies. Isaac loved it. He picked up his 10, then helped other people gather theirs, then he started throwing them like baseballs. I think he may be a pitcher when he grows up!

That pretty much sums up our life for now. We're getting excited for Grandma and Grandad to come visit in a little over 3 weeks. Hope everyone is doing well.

Thumbs up....

2009-03-24T23:06:00.003-05:00

I went to the doctor yesterday for another ultrasound. This time we got a thumbs up. The cyst is gone. Like my good friend Crystal said last month, it was probably an egg that didn't release and I totally agree with her. So, I have a cycle of clomid that I start taking tomorrow and then I go back to get labs taken in 3 weeks to see if I ovulated. They're also talking about doing an ultra sound of my falopian tubes as well as a sperm count for Joel, next month.

Isaac and I have been hanging out by ourselves since Friday. Joel is in DC for a "business" trip. They're touring a bunch of Army bases and different intelligence offices, to include NGIC, where he went today. That's the building in Charlottesville where he worked at when we were stationed there. He got to see a few people that he used to work with, a lot have moved on and some he just wasn't able to see that he wished he could have. He was really disappointed because they took them down there on a charter bus, so they had to eat in the cafeteria for lunch and couldn't go out to some of our favorite restaurants...He's been having fun relaxing and playing video games. He calls me at 9pm my time, which is 3am east coast time, to tell me he's on his way too bed. Because I'm not there to nag him to get off the computer, he plays all night long. Hopefully he'll get it out of his system so he won't play all the time when he comes back home.

My little Isaac is becoming such a little man. He's pretty much just wearing size 2 now. His 18 month shirts are too short on him. Finally! He's learning how to stack blocks and he loves shape sorters. He's learning new words every day. He answers "yes" and "no" appropriately, most of the time, which is terrific. And the most important thing, my name is now "Mommy"! I wasn't anything for the longest time. Then I became "Nana" over the summer. Now I'm "Mommy". It's so wonderful! It's especially fun when he gets stuck doing something he's not supposed to and you hear the distress grunt and then "mommy, mommy", and I have to come to the rescue.

I don't have any pictures to post. Joel has my camera and my lap top that I store my pictures on. I'll try to download some from my phone. Hope everyone is doing well.

Fifth's disease, Target and home grown vegetables...

2009-03-10T00:56:00.004-05:00

So, you're probably wondering what all of these have in common and the answer is, nothing really, other than that's been our life the last few days.

So, guess where I shopped at the other day? Target! That's right. And why am I posting this, it's just Target. Well, it just so happens that the first 2 Target's in Hawaii opened here last week. We have one in the next town over from us and one down by the Navy Exchange in Honolulu where we do all of our grocery shopping. I went last week and picked up some new cushions for my back porch glider. I found some a few weeks ago, but they were really thin and didn't have strings to tie them on. These have strings, are thicker and have a pretty tropical print. These people here are crazy for Target, probably because it's a new store. I tried to go there today to get Isaac some benadryl, before the doctor's appointment, but couldn't even find a place to park. The police were turning people away because the lot was full. How crazy is that!

On to the next topic. Fifth's disease. Have any of you heard of this before? Me either, but my son has it. He started out with rosy cheaks on Friday night. Which lasted Saturday and Sunday. We thought it was just an allergic reaction to a new pizza we had tried Friday night. Well, when he got up this morning, he was covered in blotches head to toe. So, I called the doctor and got him in this afternoon. Apparently, it's a virus that affects school aged children. There's no medicine that can be given for it, it just has to run it's course. The incucation period for this stuff is 7-21 days, so sometime within the last 3 weeks he's been exposed to someone who had it. It last for about a week, so until it clears up I'll just have to deal with lot's of questions about why his face is so red.

Now, on to home grown vegetables. Joel and I decided we wanted to give a try to growing our own vegetables. So we bought seeds for cucumbers, pumpkins, greenbeans, onions and tomato's. We planted all but the pumkins on January 24, which we started a week or two later. Today, we found about 10 green beans, and about 10 cucumbers that are about an inch long. We should have enough beans to make a mess within the next few days. I'm so excited. I've taken a few pictures to show you how big these plants are. It's crazy that we grew these from seeds, just a little over a month ago. And the picture of our pumpkin plant doesn't do it justice. This thing is monstrous!

Well, that about sums up our life for the last week or two. Hope all is well with you guys.

no clomid this month....

2009-02-24T16:07:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update... I went to the OB yesterday for an ultrasound to check for cysts and tumors in my ovaries. They have to make sure that everything is clear before they start the clomid. Just our luck, I have a cyst on one of my ovaries. This means, no clomid this month. It's only 2cm, so too small to operate. The tech who did the ultrasound said that they normally go away on their own...So, I go back next month during my cycle to get checked again. If it's gone, then we start the clomid. If it's still there, then I think they're going to start some kind of medicine to try to shrink it. So, now we just wait and see.

In love with See's candy....

2009-02-22T00:43:00.003-05:00

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote. Things here have been going very well. Joel got a new motorcycle. Unfortunatley, it won't start now. The "new" battery that the old owner put in is dead. Hopefully our neighbor will be able to help him out to get it started. He's very bike smart and helped us in purchasing this new one.

So, Valentine's has come and gone. A week or two before Valentine's day there was a commercial for chocolate on TV. Joel mentioned to me that he'd had enough chocolate for a while and was going to take a break. So, a few day's before Valentine's day, Isaac and I were out shopping trying to find Joel a gift. As we were sitting in the food court of a mall, someone walked by with See's chocolate. Well, I know my husband and I know he's not going to pass up a good truffle, especially from See's, which he loves. So, we went into the store and picked him out 1/2 lb of truffles. The lady wrapped it up in a pretty box and I brought it home and hid it in anticipation of Valentine's day. However, Joel came home from work the next day completely stressed out. I mentioned to him that I had picked up a gift for him that I thought would make him feel better. You should have seen his face when he unwrapped the box and saw his chocolates. It was priceless. He ate 3/4 of them in one sitting. He was so happy with his present, that he wanted more chocolates instead of anything else for V-day. So, we finally made it back to the store 2 days ago. My husband picked out 2 1/2 lbs of truffles. You should have seen him in the candy store, he was in heaven. He's vowed to make this last though. He's only eating 1 or 2 per day. We'll see!...As for my Valentine's gift. I got a new porch swing for my back porch. It's actually a glider and we didn't get the one we had picked out, but it's still very nice. Isaac and I love rocking in it...We also got a babysitter a couple of days after Valentine's and went out to dinner and a movie. What a lovely time.

Our little Isaac is growing. He had to go for a check-up with the Endochronologist last week, so he got weighed and measured. He was 25 lbs and 35 inches tall. He is getting close to the 50th percentile on the growth chart. Everything is fine with his thyroid. He goes back in 3 months for another check-up.

He's learning so much now. He picks up stuff really quickly. He's learning new words. His muscles are getting stronger and he's becoming sturdier in walking, running and climbing. We actually have to jog to catch up with him when he takes off running....He "talks" all the time. Yesterday I heard him jabbering while walking down the stairs. I finally stopped and listened to what he was saying, "three, three, three, go!" How cute! He also learned to say "Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and Rainbow" along with others I can't think of right now, this week.

So, I guess I should tell you that we've been trying to have another baby. We stopped our Depo in June, but have had no succes. After trying to get an appointment for about 3 months, we were finally able to get in to see a Geneticist/OB/Gyn in December. We wanted to talk to her about the risk of having another preemie, etc..She ran test and everything came back normal. The percent of us having another preemie is about 20%. Not bad....However, there is another catch. I haven't had a period since having Isaac. This is due to the depo., but then again, my last shot was June. So, the doctor started me on provera to start a period, which we did last month and then I had to have blood test taken to see if I ovulated. I didn't. We're going to be starting clomid, a fertility drug, next week. Hopefully the side effects aren't multiples, but we'll take what we get.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Mimi and Pop's Visit

2009-01-31T02:30:00.006-05:00

At Polynesian Cultural Center

So BIG!!!
Feeding the ducks at the pond.

In our front yard and sunset down by Honolulu

Eating noodles

Ok, so they've been gone for a week, but I'm just now getting around to blogging. First off, I should tell you that Isaac's foot has healed quite nicely. We were very thankful that he didn't get an infection. He never once showed any pain and only wore a band-aid for 2 days.

So, Mimi and Pop came to visit and we all had a great time. We ate at new places and toured the whole island. We went to the North Shore on a day when they had 15ft. waves, so they got to see how neat that was. We visited a Bhudist temple, 2 Botanical Gardens, Waikiki Aquarium, Polynesian Cultural Center as well as drove around the whole island. We took them to our favorite beach to swim and snorkel, but the water was way too cold. Joel, Isaac and I did swim for a few minutes, but not long.

I must say, my favorite thing was the Polynesian Cultural Center. It's a day long trip. The center is divided into 7 Polynesian Islands. Each area has a display for that certain island as well as activities to do. Then at 5pm, you go the Luau and eat great food. After that is the show, where all of the islands perform dances. Cool stuff! Isaac was so exhausted by the time the show started, but he was so mesmerized by the dancing that he stayed awake for the whole show.

Last week was also my 30th birthday, so Joel and I got to out on a date by ourselves. We went to dinner at Buzz's steakhouse and had a great meal. Then we did a bit of shopping and I got a new pair of earrings, in addition to the other pair and the pearl necklace that I had received for my birthday. After that we went to the movies. Then we drove around and talked for a long time. It was a great night.

Then, this past Monday, we got a young woman for our church to come babysit for a few hours, and we went out to dinner with my friend Jen. We were planning on going to putt-putt, but it was closed. We went to a Ramen restaurant for dinner and it was delicious. We've found a Ramen restaurant that we love. We've been twice in the last two weeks. I think I could eat it 3 or 4 times a week. I know, it sounds silly to like noodle soup, but it's great. They make their own noodles and broth and meat right there at the restaurant, so it's very fresh and very YUMMY!!!

Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy the pictures!

1st ER trip of 2009

2009-01-15T16:40:00.007-05:00

puncture wound

Eating mud pies and riding daddy's motorcycle

At the Honolulu aquarium..

In preperation for Mimi and Pop arriving this evening, our house has been one chaotic whirlwind of cleaning and decorating. Last evening in the midst of hanging pictures, we discovered that we needed a bigger picture frame for a picture of the DC Temple that we had bought and never framed. We decided to head to Walmart and pick up the frame and a few other things. Once we got home I showed Joel the things I still had to hang. He decided that he would hang the "Barefeet Welcome" plaque for me, on our front porch, which was just fine for me. Apparently, our house is made of iron, because trying to hammer nails into our siding was not working, it was bending the nail. After about 4 nails, Joel decided it was time for the drill. So, hole is drilled, drill is then placed on the entertainment center. Joel then shuts the door and hammers in his nail. Meanwhile, I am in the dining room framing my picture. All of a sudden I hear a thud, but thought Joel had hit Isaac with the door on his way inside. Not so. Isaac starts screaming and we see the drill "on" his foot, or so I thought. He pulled the drill off of the entertainment center. So, I run and pick up the drill. Joel says "oh, good, no blood". "Blood, why would there be blood?" So, I go to take off his sock and it's stuck, so I pull it and watch it pull out of his foot! The drill bit had went right through his foot and out the other side and pushed the sock through with it. Thank goodness it was the smallest drill bit in the box, about the size of a small nail... There wasn't much blood, so we ran and got some ice and started to apply pressure and made our way to the car and on to the ER. The x-rays showed no major damage, but there is some ity bity fragment of a foreign object in his foot. They numbed him up and dug around for a few seconds and couldn't see anything. So, they took more x-rays and it's still there, but they feel very confident that it's not part of the drill bit, it may just be some lint from his sock. So, they cleaned it and bandged it and sent us home with antibiotics. They said that digging around in such a small wound would only cause more damage than is already done.

Isaac was a trooper! He only cried for about a minute. I had Joel give him a blessing and during the middle of the blessing, he stopped crying and was in a happy mood the rest of the night. Truly, he is one special boy! We've seen miracle after miracle with this little boy.

Needless to say, the house is not quite as clean as I was hoping. I had planned on shampooing my carpets last night, but now I think I'm going to vacuum and call it good.

Other than last nights excitment, we've been doing pretty good. Isaac continues to learn new words. He loves his therapists and is starting to focus more when they play with him. He walked up and down the stairs by himself the other day. He likes to watch our fish in our tank and pond. When we go outside to feed them in the mornings he walks up to them and says "hi" and waves. So cute!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Christmas....

2008-12-29T01:38:00.005-05:00

Isaac had a blast on Christmas. This is the first year he's gotten into opening presents. We kept having to take away his gifts so that he would continue opening the rest. He would have stopped after the first one if we would have let him. He got a shopping cart, an art table, lots of cars and books, some new clothes and a few other things. A lot of the things that he got had Elmo on them and he loves Elmo, so everything he opened he would get excited and say "Melmo"! It was so cute! He knows who Santa is too, so every time during the Christmas season he would see Santa he would get excited then too and point to him and say"SANTA"! And he loves Christmas lights. He points and say's "that".

Joel and I didn't get much for each other for Christmas, which was fine. We did however do some shopping after Christmas. We were able to get a new Canon copy/scanner/printer with a LCD screen that shows you what it's copying for $50.We bought that at Circut City. If you have one near you, keep checking them out, they're going out of business, so liquidation prices are coming. We also purchased a new Canon elph digital camera that we love from Best Buy. It was $230 on sale for $150. We used our $50 gift card we got for Christmas and then redeemed our Best Buy points from other purchases and our total came out to $60. Lastly, we bought a 7" LCD digital photo frame for $50 from Best Buy. It was on sale, orginally $90. Joel had tried to purchase this for me for Christmas, but they didn't have any on the island. Because of that, Best Buy offered to send it to us with free shipping, so we decided that was a good deal. Joel will be able to take that with him when he deploys and have pictures of us handy.

Our task at hand for the next few weeks is to get our house in order. Mimi and Pop are coming out to visit and will be arriving on the 15th, we're looking forward to that!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I wish we could have been home, but we did have a pretty nice Christmas with just the three of us. Love and miss you all! Thanks for the cards.

Mele Kalikimaka...

2008-12-19T02:17:00.004-05:00

I feel like I'm finally getting ready for Christmas. I've gotten my cards mailed out along with the gifts to the mainland. I've also learned my lesson, don't ship stuff home! We spent more on shipping than we did on gifts. It ran us almost $100 to ship 3 boxes, because of the size of the box, not the weight. Next year, everyone is getting a gift card. That only cost .42 cents to ship. Anyhow, I got to go out on Monday night, by myself and do some shopping, and it was wonderful! Then today, we had some free time before meeting Joel for lunch, so we stopped at Ross and I got Isaac 7 Sandra Boynton books. We love her books, they're great!....The highlight of the day however, was my purchase of a Willow Tree Nativity Set. The one I got just included Joseph and Mary holding Jesus, but they're about 18 inches tall. This particular set sells for around $80. So, Joel and I were at the PX picking up a few things so I started browsing through the Christmas section. I've wanted to get a Willow Tree nativity for a few years, but it's always so expensive. Anyhow, I spotted them and they weren't priced. So, I picked them up and took them to Joel and asked if we could get a price check. He begrudgingly agreed, because he's been tracking prices with me too, knowing that I wanted them, so I went to the price scanner. $18.57! My mouth dropped! So, I scanned it again, same price. I ran to tell Joel who was in the check out line. He didn't believe me, because he knows what they sell for, sure enough, when they rang them up, $18.57. We told them that price wasn't right, the guy shook his head and said oh well, maybe they're on sale!Maybe?! How great was that!

Yesterday was Joel's company Christmas party. We had to take a dessert, so we baked pumpkin pies. I guess they were good, we never got any. They were gone before we got to them. They had lots of other desserts though, so Joel and Isaac had a great time sampling everything. Isaac takes after his daddy in the sweets department...Isaac had a blast at the party. They had jumping pits, so he crawled up in them and ran around forever. He also got to see Santa and get his picture taken.

We took a walk this evening around our neighborhood to see the lights. Isaac really likes the lights. He yells and points them out for every one he sees. It's so fun to watch him get so excited! He's been pretty good with the tree. He doesn't bother it too much. We decided not to put presents under it until Christmas night though.

Isaac went to the doctor today for his surgery follow-up. He said that everything is healing nicely. You really would have never known that he had surgery at all, the way he has been acting. If it bothered him, he sure never let us know. I think he only took about 3 doses of pain medicine after surgery and I'm not really sure that he needed it. It made me feel better though, giving it to him.

Well, it's time for bed! Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy the pictures, they're of Isaac in his Christmas outfit, Isaac playing in the dryer the evening after we got home from his surgery, Isaac with Santa, the house down the street that has a hula girl lit up in their yard and our tree.

Update....

2008-12-10T00:21:00.002-05:00

Isaac had surgery today. Everything went well. Better than expected actually. They only had to make 2 small holes in order to tack down his testicles, instead of opening his old surgery sites. Recovery was very quick. Once he woke up he was ready to get out of there. He was discharged before the nurse was even finished giving report.

We went to the endocronologist and the opthamologist last week. We go back for a follow-up with the endo. in February. He says that once Isaac turns three, then we'll take him off of his medicine to see how he does. If his thyroid levels drop, then he'll go back on and more than likely be on them the rest of his life.
We got good news at the opthamologist. Isaac doesn't have what the Dev. Ped. thought he did. He has congenital nystagmis, where his eyes twitch constantly, but his twitch is not bad. In order to compensate for this, he turns his head slightly to the right and his vision corrects itself. This is something that he will always have, but the doctor doesn't think it will get much worse than it is. Plus, he is not one bit nearsighted. Which is very unusual for a preemie.

The Christmas tree is up and the house is decorated. I have not taken any pictures. Sorry. Maybe I'll put some up in a few days.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Full of Thanks...and turkey

2008-11-29T01:58:00.004-05:00

What a nice Thanksgiving we had. This was our first Thanksgiving "alone". First time cooking turkey, homemade gravy, rolls and pumpkin pie. And I must say, it turned out great. Not sure that we cooked the turkey long enough, but we didn't get sick, so it must have been fine!...We had one guest over for dinner, Kathleen. We go to church with her. She is in the military and her husband just recently deployed. They found out they were expecting the day he left. So she's been really sick and alone, so we've tried to befriend her. I think she enjoyed herself.

I really am truly thankful for all that I have in my life. I have wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally and a beautiful little boy that I can't imagine ever living without. I have a roof over my head and a car to drive. Money may be tight at times, but at least we have an income. And I have the gospel! I'm am so greatful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'm greatful for the ward we are in. The members are terrific and we're quickly making friends.

We had a wonderful day today. It was ward Temple day so we got to get up bright and early this morning and go to the temple. Our ward assigns baby sitters, so we get to take Isaac with us and drop him off at the church with the baby sitters , which is great. So, Joel and I got to go in and do some Temple work and then they asked if he could stick around and help with youth baptisms. So, I went and picked up Isaac and we went out for breakfast and then came back to wait. Usually I am very impatient when I have such little sleep, but today it was so peaceful and beautiful that I was happy to be there waiting. Isaac and I went to the Visitors center, which was decorated for Christmas. Then we walked around the Temple grounds and took pictures. It was so pretty. When you walk out of the Temple and look down the long drive way, you can see the ocean on the other side of the road. It's gorgeous! Isaac was on his best behavior! We eventually got back in the van for some A/C and Isaac crawled up in my lap and went to sleep about two minutes before Joel showed up.

So we have a busy week coming up. On Monday we go to the endochronologist, then Tuesday we go to a pre-op appointment and then later in the day we go to the opthamologist. Then Friday, we write his IFSP for his early intervention. And then the following Tuesday, the 9th, he has surgery. I think I have 8 appointments scheduled for him so far in December and will be adding more. Poor kid!

Joel is out camping with the boyscouts tonight. Female leaders don't get to go along, which didn't upset me in the least! So, Isaac and I had a nice quiet evening at home. I nodded off once or twice and he quickly woke me up. He turned in early, he had a long day too! I'm about to head to bed myself.

Hope everyone is doing well and that you had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Sunday update

2008-11-10T03:15:00.004-05:00

We actually had a pretty slow week this week. Only one appointment to go to. Isaac went to the Developmental Pediatrician on Monday for an evaluation. He then referred us to the Early Intervention program, the audiologist and the pediatric opthlamologist. We're scheduled to meet with the EI people on Wed. to do intake papers, then we should have assessments, team meeting and start therapy within the next couple of weeks... As for the audiologist and the opthamologist, Dr. Roy thinks his hearing is fine, but wants to get it checked out anyhow. And he says that Isaac's vision is compromised by his right eye. I'm not sure if it's a lazy, but it doesn't stay in allignment, it crosses every so often. He says that this sends two signals to the brain because the eyes are seeing two different things and that if it's not fixed, the brain will eventually cut off what the right eye is seeing. It is fixable, but we're not sure yet what the steps would be to fix it...So, since I hadn't heard back from anyone at the hospital by Friday to schedule these appointments, I decided to give them a call. Looks like they're sending us out to civilian doctor's, so now I have to call our insurance, find out who we've been referred to and then schedule appointments.

We're trying to transition Isaac to a toddler bed. His crib turns into a toddler bed, but it doesn't have any safety rails on one side, so we're not too fond of it, but that's what we're using for now, until we can afford something better. He won't lay down and go to sleep in it on his own, so we're having to rock him and get him to sleep and then put him in his bed, which as much as I love snuggling with him, I've already had to break this habbit before and I'm not looking forward to doing it again. Anyhow, once in bed, he usually rolls out at least once a night, so we have piles of pillows for him to roll onto. When I go to check on him, he's usually on the pillows. The other morning though, he was halfway under his bed. The other night he got up at 2:30 and yelled for me, so I met him in the hallway as he was walking out of his room and he told me he wanted a "cookie", I told him it was "nighttime". Mommy won!

Joel is off work Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully we will get more boxes unpacked. I think we may go to the beach Tuesday. It's been more than a week since we were there...Joel and I went to pick up his motorcycle today, it's been at base since his safety course. He drove it home today, which is the first time he's ridden it that far. He did great though! Maybe he will get the hang of this afterall!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Halloween and such

2008-11-01T17:48:00.004-05:00

This is my little dinosaur, isn't he adorable! We worked on keeping the hat on his head and Joel said he left it on most of the time while they were trick-or-treating. He really enjoyed seeing the other kids dressed up. He also enjoyed the candy too. Of course we gave most of it away, we ran out and restocked with his loot. He couldn't eat that much and we definitely don't need it. We did save some though, so he had a candy bar and a sucker last night. He kept picking up pieces and bringing them to me and saying "cookie". (Which is his new favorite word.)

Joel carved a pumpkin the other night. Isaac helped draw the face on. You can see the pen marks if you look closely. Once it was lit and sitting on the ground, Isaac crawled in front of it and sat down. It was cute. We took a picture of him, but we had to use the flash, so you can't tell that the lights are off.

Isaac went for a urology appointment yesterday. The lady we saw wasn't a pediatric urologist, but her partner is. They both agreed he needed surgery, so her partner is going to do it. She's not as concerned with him getting cancer or being sterile as the surgeon was. She say's his testicles are low enough that they're not getting all the heat from being inside of his body, but that they still need to be put in place. They're going to work out all the details with our insurance and then they'll let us know when surgery is. They said it could be the 12th, 26th or the first week of December.

So, we sold Joel's car last September when he deployed, so we wouldn't have 2 car payments. With that in mind, he's been driving my van to work ever since he's been home. So, now that we're in Hawaii, we need another vehicle. We looked on craigslist and other sites for cheap used cars and then my husband gets the bright idea that he wants a motorcycle. He's never even been on a motorcycle before. However, he found one for $1000 that is a beginners motorcycle and he bought it. We were fortunate enough to meet some very nice folks that Joel works with who ride, so Chris, that's his name, brought it to our house from Honolulu and then also came back the other day and drove it to base so Joel could take his driving class. Anyhow, this week he passed both his license and his driving course, so now he say's he's ready to ride. I'm not sure if my nerves are ready for it yet!

Hope everyone had a nice Halloween. Don't forget to turn your clocks back. Then you'll only be 5 hrs ahead of me!

Update Friday October 24 2008

2008-10-24T16:25:00.005-05:00

It's only been like 10 days since my last post. How good is that!....We were able to have lunch with my cousin Matt last week at Duke's restaurant down in Waikiki. It's in the Outrigger hotel, right on the beach, so it was very pretty. Afterwards, Joel, Isaac and I walked around the International Market which was across the street from the hotel. We've decided that we're going back there to get Christmas gifts for everyone. It was full of vendors and most everything was reasonably priced.

The next day, we had to go to the east coast to find a mall with Kay jewelers, so that I could get my rings inspected and cleaned. It's the only mall on the island with a Kay's. We found a great clearance sale at Children's Place while we were there, so we picked up a few things for Isaac...After we left the mall, we decided to drive down the rest of the east coast and around the southern tip of the island back to Honolulu, because that was the only part of the island we hadn't been to yet. It was gorgeous. I'll put pictures up of the different places we stopped. We also drove through what is called Gold Coast, where the million dollar houses are. We saw them all up on the hill, but didn't drive up to get a great look. We're saving that for another adventure.

We also went to Pearl Harbor, to the USS Missouri for a re-enlistment for one of Joel's soldiers. It was pretty cool to be on a ship like that. We got to see the Arizona memorial as well as the WV and a few others.

We've been busy sprucing up our back yard. All that was planted was some kind of ugly tree, and they lined the fences on both sides with them. So, we've bought flowers and greenery and a pond with a fountain. We don't have it finished yet, hopefully this weekend. We did buy a little gold fish for the pond. It's so little that you can hardly see it though.

Isaac went to the surgeon for a consult on Tuesday to see if his testicles had decended. They haven't, so she recommends that he have surgery. Because he was born a preemie, his testicles weren't decended when he was born. This is something that should have happened within a few months after birth. However, Isaac had hernias and they had to be repaired. The surgeon thinks that the testicles got caught in scar tissue from the hernia surgery and weren't able to decend properly. They're not too far out of place, but they need to be put in place. And because they have been out of place so long, it could have made him infertile. We're hoping that by putting them in place, this will help increase his chances of being able to have kids, but that's something we won't know until he's ready to start a family. We tentatively have surgery scheduled for Nov. 14th, but that's liable to change with our visit to the Urologist next Friday.

That's it for now.

Update Tuesday October 14, 2008

2008-10-15T03:28:00.004-05:00

Today is my parents 45th Wedding Anniversary. 4 kids and 15 grandkids later, they're still going strong. I love you guys and miss you very much!

Wow! Hawaii! What a beautiful place! Our island is amazing. You can drive from jungle to desert in less than 30 minutes. It's crazy! The trees and flowers are beautiful. The ocean is spectacular. The waves on the North Shore are starting to get big as they're about to begin "winter time". "Apparently it stays in the low 80's during the day and then at night, depending where you live it can sometimes get down to 65! The water remains constant, in the 80's though. So, it feels warm in the winter time."...The North Shore is where they do surfing competitions in the winter. We were just there last week swimming/snorkeling and there were no waves. Today there were 16 footers. Come Dec/Jan they can get up to 40 ft. We're very excited about going to see the surfing competitions.

We're starting to learn our way around the island. You never want to be anywhere near Honolulu trying to head west between the hours of 4-6pm. And you really don't want to try to be coming to our house anytime between 4-7pm. So, if we're out, we try to stay out late, so we don't have to sit in traffic....Speaking of our house, our furniture arrived last Thursday! Out of the blue on Tuesday morning they called and told us our stuff was here and it would be delivered on Thursday. When we had called the week before we were told it wouldn't arrive until Nov. (We were glad we hadn't gone and rented a bed on Monday.) Most of our stuff arrived intact. We had a scratch and dent on our new washer. Our box spring was busted and pieces of wood were missing. And then, they dropped our brand new, still had the price tag on it, entertainment center and busted it. The glass didn't break, but it cracked the door and busted up one of the corners. We were able to salvage it, with wood glue and a rubber mallet, thankfully, so it doesn't look too terribly bad... Now we just need to get boxes unpacked. We've got our living room, dining room, den and kitchen done. Which didn't put much of a dent in the boxes....We're also still waiting on our van. We've had a rental van since we got here. We were told when we shipped ours, it should be here by the 5th, no later than the 10th, but they have until the 20th. I guess they're opting for the later. It's been listed as "enroute with the carrier from the San Diego Port" for the last 3 weeks. Maybe it sunk! I'm pretty sure I could have rafted here in less time though, and that's without a motor propelling me!

So, Mr. Isaac went to the doctor last week for his 24 month well baby check-up. He weighed 22 1/2 lbs and was 32 1/2 inches tall. They were suppsed to call and schedule appointments for him to see the endroconologist (s/p) about his thyroid, the audiologist about his hearing, the early interventionist about getting therapy and the surgeon about a possible surgery on his hernia area. They think his testicles keep going up inside of him, when they should be staying down and they may have to do a surgery to tack them in place. If they don't there could be fertility issues down the road....He's really been improving a lot the last few weeks. He definitely understands what you tell him. (Whether he listens or not!) He's also repeating a lot of new words and saying new one's of his own. This week's new words are binki and thank-you.

Well, we had our first guest over for dinner the other night. My friend Jen Crowther is here going to school at the University of Hawaii, getting her Master's degree. It was nice to visit with her. She hadn't seen Isaac since he was in the hospital....Tomorrow we're going to meet up with my cousin Matt Phares, from my dad's side. He's in the Marines and he's in town for a few days. I haven't seen him since my grandma's funeral, which was almost 4 years ago.

I guess I should get ready for bed. It's getting late! Enjoy the pictures.

Update Tuesday September 16, 2008

2008-09-16T15:20:00.002-05:00

Less than a week until we leave for Hawaii. We leave on Monday!...The past few weeks have been quite busy. We got back to NC on the 18th of August. My parents showed up the next day, so we got to spend a few days with them in NC and show them around. We took them to Wilmington to the beach and aquarium, which was a lot of fun...Isaac and I ended up going back to WV with them and then Joel came up that Tuesday...We stayed there until the 31st. We got to see our family and friends and were able to have Isaac a birthday party with his cousin, my niece Kaitlyn, who is 6 weeks older than him.

The movers came the day after we got back and packed up our stuff. They came back on the 4th and packed it into overseas shipping crates. They were very efficent and we were able to leave NC by 1:30 that afternoon. Joel's parents had come up to help, so we carpooled with them down to Florida, where we are now.

We went to Ft. Myers beach for vacation last week. This is where his parents honeymooned at 30 years ago. So, we stayed at the same resort and ate at the same restaurants, and it was a lot of fun.

We'll be busy the next few days, visiting family and friends, packing clothes, sorting through important papers, etc...We shipped our van yesterday, it should arrive around the 10th of October...We've been busy looking at houses for rent and have narrowed it down to 3 different locations and about 15 houses. Hopefully we'll find something nice.

Isaac is getting bigger and cuter everyday. He's learning words. In the last week he's learned "cookie" "cracker""puppy""yucky". He's also learned how to open the doors at Mimi's house, so he and the puppy ran outside for a walk this morning, before being found.

Hope everyone is doing well... Enjoy the pictures.

Update Thursday July 31, 2008

2008-07-31T02:30:00.002-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted anything. I'm not sure that anyone is really keeping track though....Well, Joel graduted from Warrant Officer Candidate School on May 20th and we took off imediately on our drive west to Arizona. We spent a night somewhere in Lousiana, one night in San Antonio and one night in El Paso. The night in San Antonio was mostly spent in the hospital at the ER. Joel and Isaac both had nasty conjunctivitis and Isaac had pneumonia. So, we got them drugged up and then continued westward, but not before going to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk, which was gorgeous.

We arrived in Arizona on the 23rd and May and I've been in countdown mode ever since. We're staying in a little apartment 750 sq.ft., which came furnished. It's nice enough, but the ceilings are so thin that you think a herd of elephants will fall through at anytime from the people walking upstairs. It had only been two people living there, but they now have company and I haven't figured out exactly how many people are included in that company. I counted at least 10. Imagine all of those people in such a little apartment and think of all the noise they are making! Joel told me I was allowed to complain to the office if I wanted to, but I'll be nice. Hopefully they'll be gone in a few days, if not, we're only here for 2 more weeks.

So, Arizona hasn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's actually very green and somewhat pretty. We're just finishing monsoon season, which made for some great lightning storms, one that even took out our computer, so we had to go buy a new one. Hopefully insurance will reimburse us for the old one...The weather is ususally in the 90's, but there's no humidity, so it's not as muggy as in the east. And if you can find shade, it's usually a good 15degrees cooler than in the sun...We went to the Sonoran Desert Museum a few weeks ago. It's a little zoo up in Tucson, that has all of the animals that are located in this part of the US. I had no idea there were so many types of rattle snakes. 18 to be exact! That's all they have here! In addition to that, there are also tarantulas and scorpions. Did I mention how much I hate creepy crawlies! I've only seen 2 snakes so far, one while we were out driving and one that Joel took pictures of the other day from hiking. I also killed my first tarantula the other week!

Our little boy is growing! He's wearing 12-18 months clothes now. He's also starting to walk! Yay! It's only taken 21 months. He's only good for short distances, like 5-6 feet, but every once in a while he'll break loose and get 15-20. He chased his daddy down the hall the other day, which made us really smile....He's still not saying many words. He babbles all of the time though. He can say a few animal sounds, like pig, duck and cow. And he signs "all done" and "milk". He still won't say "ma ma", only on rare occasions. He calls me "na na". He'll crawl down the hall and shut himself in one of the rooms and then knock on the door and yell "na na" until I come and open it....He's such a sweet little boy and I can't imagine not having him in my life.

So, our life will be extreamly busy in the coming few weeks. We leave here on August 15th to drive back to NC. Joel will then outprocess, which will take him about 5 or 6 working days. Once that is complete, then we will go to WV for a few days over Labor Day weekend and then we will head back to NC to meet the movers and get our stuff packed up for Hawaii. Once the movers are gone, which will take about 3 days, then we head to Florida for a beach trip with the Pieper side of the family. We'll hang out there for a few days after the beach and then we'll head out to Hawaii...We still have to figure out where we need to ship our van from and where we're supposed to fly out of it. Which is looking like Atlanta, so that will be a pain in the rear....We will be in Hawaii in 7-8 weeks. How exciting!

We also have what we are hoping is definite news. The guy that Joel was supposed to replace in Hawaii, didn't want to be replaced, so they were going to ship Joel to a different until who is deploying within the next couple of months. Out of the blue last week, we got an email from that guy who said he's been offered a great job in DC, so he'll be leaving for that and that Joel should be taking his place after all. This means that he won't be deploying until the end of next year, not right after we get there!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Update Friday April 18 2008

2008-04-18T15:20:00.002-05:00

Joel is in Alabama until May 20th, so Isaac and I are hanging out in Florida. Joel was here for about 6 days before he had to go to Alabama so we had fun going to the beach and swimming in Papa's pool. Isaac is definitely a water baby. He loved the beach. He crawled all over the place and kept going back down to the water. The waves were terrible that day, with lots of rip currents, so we didn't get to take him out in it, which was too bad. He even had a couple bites of sand. He enjoyed standing in the tide with mommy and letting the water hit his feet. Mommy certainly didn't enjoy all of the sand up her bathing suit though! LOL!....We're dealing with a virus again. He has a nasty cough and runny nose, so I had to take him to Centra Care the other day, but they say his lungs are clear, he was SATing at 100. So, we've been taking cough syrup and benadryl. Hopefully he'll get better soon....He's making lots of new sounds, no words yet, just bye bye, mama and dada. He loves walking with someone holding his hands, but can't do it on his own yet. Soon!.. Here's some pictures we had taken on Monday...Enjoy..

Update Monday March 31 2008

2008-03-31T10:12:00.002-05:00

I love spring time, it's my favorite time of the year, seeing all of the flowers and all of the new baby animals. However, along with the blooming of flowers and trees, comes pollen. Joel woke up on good Friday with a cold, then Isaac got it on Easter and now I have it. In fact, it's turned into more than a sinus infection. I took Isaac to the doctor last Tuesday and he had a double ear infection and pneumonia and that was all within less than 48 hrs of getting sick. We both seem to be getting worse, so we're headed back to the doctor this afternoon... On a better note, Isaac is gaining back the weight he lost while he had the flu. He was back up to 19lbs 2oz on Thursday and was 30 1/2 inches long.

Here are some pictures from Easter in WV. Enjoy.

Update Wednesday March 12, 2008

2008-03-12T15:44:00.002-05:00

We've had a busy last two months. Joel came home on January 16 and I feel like we've been running non stop since then. We've been to WV twice and Florida once. Now we're home for a week and then probably back to WV for Easter. Then we'll be leaving the beginning of April for Joel to go to school.

We spent last week in the hospital with Isaac, down in Florida. He decided that we should spend our vacation being sick instead of enjoying ourselves. We're not sure what he had exactly, they think it may have been the flu. He had a 104.6 fever and couldn't eat or drink. He's feeling fine now, but doesn't have his full appetite back yet. He ended up losing 2 lbs last week, so he's back down to 17.bs 10 oz....He has 8 teeth now and he likes to show you how he uses them! We're trying to teach him not to bite, but it's not working yet. ...He's not walking yet, but he cruises furniture and transfers from one piece to the next. He's getting so big!

He're are some pictures from the last two months.

Update Saturday January 5

2008-01-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

We had a week full of doctor's appointments. On Wednesday we went to see the Developmental Pediatrician. He had been concerned with Isaac's head growth, which is why we went back to see him. He thinks Isaac is doing ok now and is showing upward progression on the growth charts. On Thursday we went to the Pediatric Opthamologist. He says that his eyes are maturing but are still a little behind. He's not sure if Isaac will grow out of the nystagmis (eye twitch) or not, but it is a possibility. He said if he doesn't grow out of it, it will affect his vision, but not very seriously, he would be 20/40 instead of 20/20, which isn't bad for a 25 week preemie. On Friday, we went to see his pediatrician one last time before we move. He only gained 2 oz. and grew 1/10 of an inch., but I chalk that up to his constant activity. The kid is always on the go. He is finally off of his neosure preemie formula and is drinking whole milk now. We're going to try that for a month and see if he gaines weight, if not, then we'll probably have to mix it with formula...He learned to pull himself up last week, so he's discovering how much stuff he can pull off of the chairs/tables/entertainment centers, etc...He even has his first black eye already. He also is getting his top two front teeth, to go along with the two bottom ones that he's had for 3 months. He's been eating lots of new foods, chicken nuggets, soup, spaghetti, to name a few.

So, Joel has been delayed twice already from leaving Afghanistan. Now he's supposed to be home sometime during the middle of the month. Which totally messed up our moving plans and leaves me in charge of getting everything done on my own. I did meet with the lady yesterday who schedules the Army movers. It wasn't a very productive meeting, but hopefully she got the information that she needed to get my move scheduled. I'll call her on Monday or Tuesday to see if she's gotten everything straightened out, because ideally, I would like to move next weekend. So, my life is crazy hectic right now. I'm trying to sort through all of my stuff and throw out junk and frankly it's just kind of overwhelming. Hopefully I can get it done though.

Aloha! Update Saturday December 15

2007-12-15T18:18:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I last posted anything, that's because we've been running around non stop. We spent 3 weeks of November in Florida. Then we came home on the 30th and by the 4th we were in WV for a week. We had a wonderful time though. Florida was great. We got to wear our shorts and t-shirts only to come home to freezing cold weather... We did have a doctor's appointment the day we left for WV. Isaac is growing! He weiged 17lb. 8 oz. and was 28 1/4 inches long. I suppose the thyroid medicine is working.

Daddy will be home in about 3 weeks, sometime around Jan. 7th. We're getting very excited. Isaac and I went to Fayetteville yesterday and rented a house in Hope Mills. We're going to be at Ft. Bragg until May. Joel will be leaving for school in Alabama starting April 27th. He will be there for 3 weeks and then he will have a week before starting school in Arizona on May 26th. We will be moving there with him for that. He will complete school the end of August and then we will have a month before reporting to our new duty station in Ohau, Hawaii!!!!

That's all of our excitement for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

Update Thursday October 25

2007-10-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

We had two appointments last week. On Monday Isaac went to see the developmental pediatrican. They say that he's on target for his adjusted age. The doctor is still concerned about the size of his head being too small, but it's growing. We go back to see him again in January. They'll decide then if they want to send him for an MRI of his head....We also went to see the audiologist last week. Isaac still has fluid in his right ear. The left ear is normal and appears to have normal hearing. We go back to see them in January also. They've scheduled us an appointment with an ENT for that day too...Other than battling a cold the past few weeks, he's been relatively healthy. He loves to eat and is getting much better at eating solid/textured foods. He especially likes mashed potatoes. He's eating his yogurt great, which is wonderful, because that will help pack on weight!...We had 1yr pictures taken last week and Halloween pictures taken today. I think they're adorable. What do you think?

Update Sunday October 14

2007-10-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

Isaac started crawling today. YAY! He's been practicing all week long, but didn't have his coordination together. I would give Joel updates about him every couple of days and just for fun this morning I picked up the camera to record him in his attempts at crawling. Well, he surprised me by taking off. He was a little wobbly, but caught himself and got to his destination. LOL! And I caught it on video. How awesome is that!..He goes tomorrow for his NICU follow-up. Their two main goals from his last visit was sitting up and crawling and we have achieved both. We also go to get his hearing checked again on Thursday, because of the fluid in his ears the last time. When the pediatrician looked at them last week, she said they looked good, so hopefully the fluid is gone. ...The results are back from his blood tests. They think he has a hypoactive thyroid which is causing him to not gain as much weight as he should be. They said his levels are just slightly elevated, but they think it's enough to cause problems. They have started him on a small dose of medication and are planning on checking his levels again in a few weeks. All of the other tests have come back normal...Other than that, not much else is going on.

Happy Birthday Isaac and Daddy...

2007-10-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

Our little guy turned 1 on Wednesday and our big guy turned 27 today. I can't believe he's one already. The first 5 1/2 months drug on forever while he was in the hospital, but since coming home, it has flown. Especially the last couple of months. I think we were only home for about 3 days the whole month of September. We visited Mimi and Pop for their birthday party on Labor day weekend. Then we spent a week with Daddy in NC before he left for Afghanistan. We spent 10 days in WV and then we went back to Florida for a week. We're home now for a few weeks though, then back to Florida for 3 weeks in November. Staying so busy makes the time go by a lot quicker and before we know it Joel will be home. He says the end of Dec. I say Feb. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Joel got accepted to Warrant Officer School, so we will be moving to Arizona sometime early next year. YAY!

Now for the Isaac update. He is so adorable! I have so much fun with him. I couldn't ask for a better baby. He is hardly ever fussy. He cut his first two teeth this week. He can push himself up to sit. He isn't quite crawling yet. He knows to move his knees, but hasn't figured out the hands, so he ususally just lunges forward and does a belly flop. He gets where he wants to though. He went in for his 12 month check up on Friday. He only gained a pound and a half since the last visit in July, so he's up to 15lbs 12 oz., but he grew almost 2 inches. He's 26 3/4 inches. He eats a lot and he's still on high calorie formula, so we're not sure why he's not gaining more. The doctor thinks that because he grew so much length wise, he should follow that up with weight gain soon. But just as a precaution, I had to take him back in yesterday to get blood drawn for labs. They're going to test his thyroid and some other things. We should start getting some results tomorrow.

He had 3 different birthday parties last week. On Wednesday, we were able to connect with Joel on the webcam and he got to see Isaac open his presents and eat his birthday dessert, which was very nice.

Here's some pictures so you can see how much he is growing.

Update Tuesday August 14

2007-08-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

Isaac continues to grow like a weed! Not sure on a weight and length though...He loves his food. He's up to bananas, applesauce, pears, peas, squash and carrots. He likes to eat cereal with every meal too, he doesn't like the food just by itself. We started him on juice too, so he drinks a couple ounces every day or so. ... He is completely off of oxygen and is doing great....He went to the eye doctor, the NICU follow-up clinic and the hearing clinic a couple of weeks ago. The eye doctor said that his eyes are still a little delayed, but that everything seems to be developing well and wants to follow up in January. The NICU clinic says that he's still delayed, even for his adjusted age, but he should be making major progress in the next couple of months and they are absolutely right. Even in the last two weeks he has been doing so much more. He likes to roll across the floor. He is geting better on pushing up on his hands and knees and scooting. He is getting a little better balance when we try to get him to sit up, but still needs a lot of work on this...He also went to get his hearing tested and he has fluid in his right ear. We go back on Sept 5 to get it checked again. If it's still there, then they'll probably send us to an ENT... It's back to just being Mommy and Isaac again. Daddy had to leave for Ft. Bragg on Friday. He's scheduled to leave for Iraq on Sept. 7. We should be able to spend weekends together until he leaves, hopefully.

Update Saturday July 28

2007-07-28T18:24:00.000-05:00

What a big baby! Isaac weighed 14lbs 5 oz at the doctor's on Tuesday and he was 25 1/4 inches long. His kidney ultra sound was normal, but they're keeping him on a small dose of antibiotics just as a precaution...He is still a little more delayed than what he should be, even for the adjusted age, but he is growing stronger everyday. He is beginning to push up on his hands and knees when he's on his belly, so crawling should be coming shortly. He's still not sitting up on his own, but he loves to be held upright or standing. Hopefully sitting up will happen soon also...The other big news for the week is that he began baby food. We started him out on bananas, but he's not crazy over them. We began carrots today and he seems to like them more than the bananas. How crazy is that!...Anyhow, hope everyone had a good week....

Update Thursday July 19

2007-07-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Vacation is over, we're back in Virginia. We had a wonderful time. Isaac enjoyed himself and all of his Florida relatives loved playing with him. I'm not sure if there was more than 10 minutes a day that he wasn't held, except at night while asleep and he loved that. He was a great little traveler. He sang and played the whole way to Florida and on the way back he slept. I guess he was wore out. While we were there it seemed like he gained 5 lbs and grew 3 inches, I guess we'll find out next week how much he did grow. We actually had to break out 3-6 months clothes because his 0-3 were getting too short....He spent a lot of time swimming and loves the water, at least for a little while. He kicks his arms and legs and laughs. We went to St. Petersburg for a few days to the Gulf and we took him in the ocean in his little crab float. The waves were so relaxing to him that he laid his head down on his float, stuck his thumb in his mouth and went to sleep. It was the cutest thing, I wish we could have gotten a picture....Now that we're back home, we start our doctor appointment schedule again. Tomorrow we go for a kidney ultrasound to see if he has reflux. They did this ultrasound once while he was in the NICU because of UTI's and he had another UTI a couple of days before we left for vacation, so he is now on antibiotics. We go the pediatrican next week and then the week after that we go to the Pediatric Opthamologist, Developmental pediatrician and the Hearing clinic to get his hearing tested. We should have a break after that though...We're glad to have daddy home with us again, even though it's only going to be for a couple of weeks. He leaves again on August 10. Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy the new pictures.

Update Wednesday June 20

2007-06-20T17:25:00.000-05:00

Isaac and I are in West Virginia now visiting with my family. His little cousins are having a blast playing with him. We haven't been alone since we got here, someone has been with us at all times. LOL!...Before we came here though, we had a pediatrician appointment. Isaac is doing great. He is up to 13lbs 2 oz and is 24 1/2 inches long. He is also eating cereal now, which he had for the first time yesterday. He wasn't quite sure what to think of it, but seems to like it...He is also weaning off of his oxygen. The doctor's said it was up to me to determine how long I thought he should be on it everyday. Currently we are doing mostly off during his awake time and then on at night while he is asleep. He seems to be tolerating it pretty well. This is good, because we're going to Florida next week and I would hate to have to drag all of his oxygen equipment to the beach with us....That's pretty much it. We're doing well...

Update Tuesday June 5

2007-06-05T22:10:00.001-05:00

Isaac is eight months old now! That's crazy!... We haven't had any doctor's appointments for about 3 weeks, which has been nice. He does have to go in for a surgery follow-up next Thursday the 14th and then to the pediatrician on the 18th...He's getting so big. We haven't had a weight or length since our last doctor's appointment, but you can tell that he's growing. He is starting to roll over now. He has rolled from belly to back, but prefers back to belly, then screams because he doesn't like belly, which makes tummy time not so much fun...He got a new tummy time toy that plays music and has flashing lights and he absolutely loves it. Thank goodness it also stands up so that he can reach up and grab it while he's on his back because all he does is cry while on his belly. Anyhow, he can entertain himself for an hour at a time with this thing. He just laughs and kicks and slaps and has a grand ol' time. It's the cutest thing....He had a nice time over Memorial day weekend with Mimi and Pop. They said he was the best little baby and they really enjoyed themselves...Mommy and Daddy also had a nice time relaxing in Arizona and seeing all the sights...That's it for now. Not much to update on. Hope everyone is doing well.

Update Sunday May 20

2007-05-20T14:09:00.000-05:00

Isaac and I are doing relatively well adjusting to Daddy being gone. We spent a week in West Virginia with my family. Now we're back in Charlottesville and I'm trying to get my house clean before I leave on Thursday to go see Joel.
Isaac is doing great. We went to the pediatric opthamologist and the pediatrician last week. The opthamologist says that his eyes look ok so far. That the reason he's having trouble focusing is because he still has preemie eyes and the signals between his optic nerve and brain haven't fully developed yet, so we're scheduled to go back to see him the end of July for a follow-up. Isaac is starting to focus more now and his eyes don't twitch at all...At the pediatrican he was weighed and measured. He weighed 11lb 10oz and was 23 inches long. The doctor said that we were doing a great job and he is very impressed with how well Isaac is doing...He is eating about 3-4oz every 3 hours now...I found that he sleeps really well on his belly. So the last two nights I have let him sleep on his belly and he's gone 5 1/2 hours both nights before waking up to eat. He eats and then goes right back to sleep, so I'm starting to get more sleep too, thank goodness...During the day is another story. If he does go to sleep, he's lucky to sleep for more than 20 minutes, unless if he's in his car seat after we've been out, then he'll sleep for an hour or so. This sure makes it hard to get stuff done around the house, but I'm learning to deal with it.
Hope everyone is doing ok...

I'm ready for my closeup!

2007-05-09T01:15:00.000-05:00

I had a big day at Sears a few weeks ago! Aunt Vickie came out, and I got in my snazzy baby outift, and they flashed bright lights at me! The best part was, I didn'thave to have those stupid plastic things in my nose! I was stylin! I looked all over, and tried not to look at the lady who was flashing the lights, but somehow she caught me! Anyhow, here's what I looked like! If you print them out, I'll autograph them... when I learn to write. :)

Isaac

Welcome

2007-05-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Isaac's new blog. Mommy and Daddy were concerned with the adult content on Myspace, so we've moved to Blogger, which we feel much better about. We hope you all continue to enjoy Isaac's progress. We're so happy that so many people care about him!

God bless you all,

Daddy